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TOTE-ROAD AND TRAIL 




It's chuck in the day and a bunk in the night 



TOTE-ROAD AND 
TRAIL 

Ballads of the Lumberjack 



By 

DOUGLAS MALLOCH 



ILLUSTRATED IN FULL COLOR BY 

OLIVER KEMP 



INDIANAPOLIS 

THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY 

PUBLISHERS 



Copyright 1917 ^^ '\>' 

The Bobbs-Merrill Company ^^ j^ a 



y^\^'^ 




PRESS OF 

BFIAUNWORTH & CO. 

BOOK MANUFACTURERS 

BROOKLYN, N. Y. 



OCT 19 1917 



TO MY WIFE 

Had heaven a star, a single star, 

A solitary lamp, 
One beacon-light to shine afar 

And lead me back to camp- 
That one sure star would bring me to 
The camp, the waiting fire, and you. 

Had life but one, a single one, 

But you, unchanging still. 
However far my feet might run 

Down valley or up hill — 
That one true heart, the heart of you. 
In good or ill would bring me through. 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 

facing page 
It's Chuck in the Day and a Bunk in the 
Night Frontispiece 

While Us Poor Skates in Regions Cool Go Out an* 
Make His Money 28 ' 

An' Ev'ry Time You Turn a Bend the Next Bend 
Looks the Best 56 ' 

For There Are the Woods to People, and There Is 
the Trail to Make 88 *' 

I'd Like to Just Come Walkin' in an' Find You All 
A-settin' Here 120 ' 

Worked a Peavey, Pulled a Saw, Rode the River in a 
Thaw 156 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Afterward 164 

Aspen, The 131 

Bad Man, The 165 

Behind a Spire 132 

Breakup, The 53 

Call Us, America 45 

Calling Up the Crew 3 

Camp in the Woods with a Friend, A 123 

Chalt)iere 69 

Christella 78 

Christina 110 

Cruise, The 170 

Day, a 90 

Discovery 139 

Fall, The 15 

Forty 134 

Fungi 88 

Greater the Heart, The 8 

Hair of the Dog, The 43 

Hero Meddlers, The 67 

His Eyes 125 

Holy Ground 95 

If Fortune Came 119 

In Town on New Year's Eve 36 

Intercession 97 

Interpreters 94 

Irish, The 76 

Just Alive 49 



CONTENTS— C(?»^i«M^d 

PAGE 

Keep Your Ears Ahead 149 

Loafer, The 14 

Look Back, A 168 

Love of a Man, The 12 

Man Who Always Won, The 135 

Man Who Could Play, The 86 

Man's Road, The . 107 

Night Like This, A 100 

Oh, To Be a Gypsy 30 

One 122 

One-Spot, The 129 

Pilgrimage, The . 23 

Point of View, The 27 

Price, The 72 

Prosperity 47 

Recruit's Request, The 159 

Retired 153 

Sanctuary 1 

Seed 81 

Self-Made Man, The 83 

Signal, The . • 75 

Simple Life, The 33 

Star Spangled Banner Forever, The 31 

Stony Brook 61 

Superannuated 51 

Tenderhearted Bill 58 

Three Mornings 112 

Times, The 141 



COlslTENTS— Continued 

PAGE 

To A Chipmunk 92 

Undergrowth 106 

Up-River 10 

Wedding, The 161 

When the Drive Goes Down 56 

Widowhood of Doubt, The 151 

Widow-Maker, The 40 

Winner, The 64 

Woodland, The 117 

Work in the Woods, The 6 

World, The 7 

Youth Who Wore an "M," The 18 



TOTE-ROAD AND TRAIL 



Tote-Road and Trail 



SANCTUARY 

When some one has slipped you the dirk in the dark, 

When eyes that are loving are lies, 
When some one you trusted has made you a mark. 

And somehow the heart in you dies, 
There's dirt for you, hurt for you, trouble enough 

To shatter the faith of a man ; 
But don't ever think there is trouble so tough 

That you can't overcome it — ^you can. 

When living is losing its flavor to you. 

When worry is making you old ; 
When there is no joy in the thing that you do 

Nor truth in the thing you are told. 
There's balm for you, calm for you, out in the wild, 

There's hope for you up on the hill. 
Get up in the timber and play like a child ; 

you can overcome it — ^you will. 

1 



SANCTUARY 

Get up in the timber ; the trail and the trees 

Will make you a man in a day. 
The smell of the soil and the breath of the breeze 

Will blow all your troubles away. 
There's pine for you, wine for you, hope for you 
there — 

The sun and the moon and the star — 
If the ways of the city are not on the square, 

Get up in the woods — where they are. 



CALLING UP THE CREW 

They'll soon be callin' up the crew to cut the Edwards 

pine; 
You feel it in the lungs of you, you fill 'em full of 

wine ; 
The night is full of piney smells, the perfume of the 

North ; 
An' cold an' clear as icicles the starbeams glitter forth. 

They'll soon be callin' us to come ; they'll need us in the 
bush — 

The sturdy sons of Scotia some, the old Toronto push. 

The Frenchman with his shinin' saw, the sons of Eng- 
lishmen — 

They'll need us up the Ottawa to cut their pine again. 

We're getherin' at Wullie's bar, we're settin' in the 

sun. 
We're waitin' for the private car the old Grand 

Trunk'll run; 
We're tellin' how we spent our cash, an' braggin' of 

our girls, 
Whilst from the dirty calabash the blue tobacco curls. 



CALLING UP THE CREW 

But where is Dodson? In the trench. MacPherson? 
Dardanelles. 

Doret? Home fightin' with the French. The list of 
missin' swells. 

MacCullough ? With the Princess Pats. Oates ? Some- 
where on the foam. 

Jones? With a bullet through his slats he's invalided 
home. 

Carruthers? Well, they think he's dead. They lost 

him in Lorraine; 
Perhaps a prisoner instead ; he may come back again. 
An' James, the blue-eyed Scottish lad? In Flanders, 

under sod. 
Remember Hawkins? Just as bad — torpedoed to his 

God. 

They'll soon be callin' up the crew to cut the Edwards 

pine, 
An' I'll be there my work to do — but not some friends 

of mine. 
They're sleepin' there in Belgium, they can not hear 

the call 
That makes the other fellows come, the pine-woods 

an' it all. 

I'll do my bit with ax an' saw, an', be it pine or spruce, 
I'll put 'em down the Ottawa, an' offer no excuse. 

4 



CALLING UP THE CREW 

I'll be the last man in at night, the first man out at 

dawn — 
I'll do my work, an' do it right, but all the sport is 

gone. 

An' for the lads who died out there, I wish that they 

could sleep 
Up where the flowin' waters wear their channel to the 

deep. 
An' for the lads who suffer hell an' drink the cup of 

war, 
I'll pray a prayer for them as well, who never prayed 

before. 



THE WORK IN THE WOODS 

The work in the woods, oh, it's heavy the hurt of it, 

The long day of labor, the short night of rest, 
The camp, and the tramp, and the damp and the dirt 
of it. 

Afoot when the stars are still out in the west. 
The sting of the wind, or the snow and the rain of it, 

The cold sky if clear and the wet sky if gray — 
And yet there is something, with all of the pain of it, 

That finds us and coaxes and calls us away. 

The work in the woods ! — There is something in spite 
of it 

That pulls at the heart like a sailor the sea. 
The gay and the gray and the day and the night of it. 

The smile of the sun and the sob of the tree ; 
Afar from the forest you hear the loud call of it. 

Then what do you care if the labor be long? 
For, somehow or other, you sort of like all of it — 

The work and the play and the sigh and the song! 



THE WORLD 

The woods world, the man's world, it stretches east 

an' west, 
A green world, a new world, of all the world the best. 
There's work there, an' play there, an' shadow there 

an' sun — 
There's work there, an' play there, an' sleep when you 

are done. 

The old world, the whole world, is like the world of 

wood, 
A big world, a glad world, an' glorious an' good. 
There's life there, there's love there, enough for 

ev'ry one — 
There's work there, an' play there, an' sleep when you 

are done. 



THE GREATER THE HEART 

The man with an ax, 

The lad with a saw, 
Learn numerous facts 

Of natural law. 
A thing you will see 

As you work at your art : 
The older the tree, 

The greater the heart. 

There are sorrow and storm 

As the forest grows old ; 
There are Summers too warm. 

There are Winters too cold. 
Gray the Autumn may be 

And the sun may depart — 
But the older the tree, 

The greater the heart. 

Grow old like the pine 

Through the smiles and the tears, 
Growing better, like wine, 

With the passing of years ; 

8 



THE GREATER THE HEART 

Let them say, if they can, 
When from Hf e you depart, 

"The older the man, 
The greater the heart l" 



UP-RIVER 

Our way to camp we used to drive 

Along about this time of year. 
A man felt good to be alive 

When it come time again to steer 
Up-river way. We'd top the hill 

An' then the town would drop from sight 
An' all the night got calm an' still 

An' all the world got pure an' white. 

You know, when you let loose of men 

An' git up there among the trees, 
You slip right back to God again 

An' you're a kid on bended knees. 
Then things you thought you had forgot 

Come back to you by jump an' leap ; 
You find yourself, as like as not, 

Repeatin' "Lay me down to sleep." 

There ain't no mystery in life. 

There's nothin' you don't understand, 

An' oldtime scraps an' oldtime strife 
Look foolish in that silent land. 

10 



UP-RIVER 

The careless doubt, the wonder, cease. 
The way is clear that once was dim : 

You know there is a Prince of Peace 
An' hunger to git back to him. 



11 



THE LOVE OF A MAN 

The love of a woman is sweet ; 

In life I have fondled a few, 
Have felt the red blood as it beat 

The uttermost arteries through. 
Yet God in His wisdom divine, 

Yet God in His infinite plan, 
Made nothing as holy and fine 

As the love of a man for a man. 

There was one with the dark in her hair, 

There was one with the dawn in her eyes, 
There was one who had kisses to spare — 

For never a memory dies. 
But, maids, you were nothing but maids ; 

You passed, as the waters that ran. 
For what are the angels or jades 

By the love of a man for a man ? 

The love of a woman is warm. 
Her kisses as hot as the South, 

And glorious battle to storm 
The road to her amorous mouth. 

12 



THE LOVE OF A MAN 

But what is the nectar you drink, 
The fragile and beautiful span. 

By one indestructible link, 
The love of a man for a man? 

For when she has thrown you aside, 

Has passed from embraces a,nd sight, 
And all of the noonday has died 

And left but the stars and the night. 
You feel on your shoulder a hand. 

For comfort you come where you can, 
And deep in your heart understand 

The love of a man for a man. 

He'll go with you over the trail, y 

The trail that is lonesome and long ; 
His faith will not falter nor fail. 

Nor falter the lilt of his song. 
He knows both your soul and your sins, 

And does not too carefully scan. 
The highway to Heaven begins 

With the love of a man for a man. 



13 



THE LOAFER 

You can always tell a loafer, if there's loafin* in the 

crew; 
You can always tell a loafer, for he has so much to do : 
When the men are in the maintop he is f ussin' with a 

jib; 
On the drive he's always lookin' for a chance away to 

snib; 
In the woods the smallest timber is the timber he will 

find; 
In the yard the twelve-by-twenty is the kind he leaves 

behind. 
He will fuss an' he will fiddle huntin' up the softest 

snap: 
Life is one eternal treadmill for the take-it-easy chap. 
Yes, it takes a lot of trouble skippin' labor day by day ; 
For a fellah has to figger how to dodge it all the way. 
On the drive or in the timber, in the mill or in the yard. 
You can always tell a loafer, 'cause he works so bloom- 
in' hard. 



14 



THE FALL 

The nights are colder than they was, 
The days are shorter, too; 
The starry Hght 
Shines out to-night 
From skies of deeper blue. 
The green that lies along the hills 
Is turning brown an' sear — 
Yet I don't need 
No signs to read 
To know the time o' year. 

An' I don't need no almanac 
To tell what time it is, 

No Autumn haze 

An' shorter days 
An' all that kind of biz. 
Lord ! Don't I know the Fall is here 
When loud the nightwind groans ? 

Lord ! Don't I know 

The season though? — 
I feel it in my bones. 

IS 



THE FALL 

Fm tuggin' at this city leash 
Like forty-seven dawgs; 
I'm wishin' for 
The shanty floor. 
The timber an' the lawgs. 
I'm longin' for the wanigan, 
The tote-road an' it all — 
Lord ! Can't the jacks 
Who swing the ax 
Remember when it's Fall? 

A little more an* it will snow 
Up in the woods again ; 

A little more 

The wind'll roar, 
A little more an' then 
In Michigan the nights will be 
All sky an' moon an' stars — 

An' then I'll pack 

A little snack 
An' hike to beat the cars. 

The woods they call you in the Spring 
When days are warm an' fair, 

When robins sing 

An' blossoms fling 
Their perfume on the air. 

16 



THE FALL 

They call to you in Summertime 
When in the town you sweat. 

But in the Fall 

Oh, then they call, 
They call you louder yet. 

Give me the old October woods 
When leaves are turnin' brown ; 
The smell o' pine 
Is finer wine 
Than any in the town. 
Give me the old December snow 
That turns the world to white 
Up there in Mich. — 
Oh, Lord, I wish 
That I was there to-night ! 



17 



THE YOUTH WHO WORE AN "M'^ 

He was the rawest tenderfoot that ever pulled the 
briar, 
A rookey an' an amachure, a dude an' all of that; 
But we was short of sawyers, an' the head push had to 
hire 
'Most anything that happened 'round the place to 
hang its hat. 
He was a sort of rah-rah boy, who wore a fancy lid, 
With blue an' yellah ribbons in a bow-knot on the 
brim. 
An' pants that looked a size or more too big for such 
a kid — 
If Nature ever made a dub, it certainly was him. 

We made it just as pleasant for His Dudelets as we 
could : 
We tossed him in a blanket an' did other little things ; 
We set a jumper on him, an' the Frenchman soaked 
him good ; 
We learnt him penny ante where the deuces beat the 
kings. 
He didn't git discouraged an' he stuck right on the 
job — 

18 



THE YOUTH WHO WORE AN "M" 

He said he got it harder when they took him in the 
"frat." 
We didn't ketch his meanin', but we knew he was a 
lob 
(That is, until Thanksgiving but things changed 
some after that). 

It bein' of a holiday, we jumped the bloomin' camp 
An' mootched it to the city, there to give our proper 
thanks ; 
We took the dude along with us upon that jolly tramp 
To be the central figger in some harmless little 
pranks. 
Recollect that little barroom in the hotel on the hill? 
It was there the party gethered for the doin's of the 
day; 
An' we started in with vigor our respective hides to fill 
With all the burnin' redeye that the gang could put 
away. 

When the stuf? was flowin' freely, some one spotted 
Mr. Dude 
An' he dragged him to the region where the merry 
glasses clink, 
An' he ast him, in a manner that perhaps was some- 
what rude. 
If, upon this glad occasion, he would ruther fight or 
drink. 

19 



THE YOUTH WHO WORE AN "M" 

His Dudelets kind of trembled when they offered him 
"the same" — 
His face was really funny, 'twas so solemn-like an' 
white — 
But he turned to one that called him by a certain ugly 
name 
An* remarked in language pleasant that he guessed 
he'd ruther fight. 

It wasn't fair an' proper for us all to take a hand, 
But that challenge meant a lickin', if a challenge ever 
did. 
We proceeded in a body then to make him understand 
That a little more politeness was expected of a kid. 
But he didn't put his dukes up an' he didn't shed his 
coat — 
He just sort of hunched his shoulders an' he shouted 
"U-rah-rah!" 
Then, with both his arms wide open, through the air 
I seen him float. 
An' he struck me in the stomach while I covered up 
my jaw. 

In the very farthest corner there we landed in a heap — 
"First down!" was all he hollered, "first down, an' 
four to gain !" 
Then he mixed with Mr. Murphy, an' he put the Mick 
to sleep 

20 



THE YOUTH WHO WORE AN "M" 

When ag'inst the bar he slammed him in a way that 
give him pain. 
"Second down!" he yelled, "an' touchdown!" Then 
he straightened up a bit, 

When the Swede come swingin' at him with hot an- 
ger in his soul. 
An' he stuck his toe out forward an' the Svenska's mug 
he hit 

As he turned to grapple Frenchy, while he yelled, 
"Rah, rah! A goal!" 

But there come some reinforcements from the man be- 
hind the bar — 
With a mallet in his flippers Mr. Barkeep joined the 
fray; 
With a brotherly intention Johnny's cranium to jar 
An' no word of explanation, at his skull he blazed 
away. 
Then I knew 'twas all for Johnny, that the crack would 
make him sick, 
When the barkeep swung his hammer on our darlin' 
angel child. 
It took him in the forehead like half a thousan' brick — 
But that kid, would you believe it? why, he just 
looked up an' smiled ! 

21 



THE YOUTH WHO WORE AN "M'* 

Then he *'kicked a goal from placement," made a 
"touchdown" more, or two. 
(At least he so announced it ev'ry time he let a yell) ; 
In the corner of the barroom he piled up that fightin' 
crew 
An', to sort of cap the climax, put the barkeep there 
as well. 
When he thought they had sufficient then he showed 
the boys his "M," 
An' explained the Yost "formations" an' just how 
the thing occurred ; 
To drink a toast to "Michigan" he invited me an' 
them — 
An', when he ordered soda pop, then no one said a 
word. 



22 



THE PILGRIMAGE 

I've heard of a certain Mohammed who dwelt in a hut 
on Arabian sands 

And every year of his residence felt that a duty he had 
on his hands 

To make an excursion his Mecca to seek, a trip to the 
home of his race, 

A sort of original Home Coming Week, now so com- 
mon in every place. 

He'd pack up his duffle, his tent and his shrine and 

would beat it back home for a spell 
To see if the cocoanut harvest was fine and if all of his 

cousins were well. 
This pilgrimage habit grew rapidly so that it now is the 

regular thing 
And every season Mohammedans go up to Mecca its 

praises to sing. 

I always have felt sort of kinship to those who go 
journey to Mecca afar, 

Though I have no Koran concealed in my clothes, nei- 
ther know what Mohammedans are. 

23 



THE PILGRIMAGE 

But every year I am up and away to a Mecca, a shrine 

of my own, 
That calls me as loudly and as surely as they who are 

called by a city of stone. 

My Mecca's the woods, just the woods in the Fall, 
when October comes rolling around — 

The camp and the river, the pine and it all, when the 
frost takes a-hold of the ground. 

It isn't religion that gets me to go and it isn't a psalm 
or a prayer — 

It's twenty-eight dollars, or thirty or so, they are pay- 
ing for swampers up there. 

It's chuck in the day and a bunk in the night and the 

stake when we quit in the Spring 
That coaxes me northward to work and to fight — only 

these are the why of the thing. 
The folks in the East go to Mecca to lay in a new stock 

of faith for the year, 
But I, I go up to my Mecca for pay — when I'm busted, 

to get in the clear. 

I guess that's the way of the East and the West, it's 

the way of the new and the old, 
That they are content on religion to rest, while we 

Yankees are out for the gold. 

24 



THE PILGRIMAGE 

You couldn't get Yankees to go on a hike up to any 

Mohammedan shrine, 
But offer them thirty a month and they'll strike for the 

land of the hemlock and pine. 

They say that we worship the dollar too much, we are 

crazy for riches, they say; 
They say we are worse than the Scotch or the Dutch, 

that it's quite the American way. 
If pulling the briar or pounding the plugs for a dollar 

a day is a crime, 
What's asking three hundred for dirty old rugs that 

were made in your grandfather's time? 

If this is a showdown of Meccas, my friends, of the 

Yank or Arabian kind. 
We look at the matter from different ends and we each 

have a different mind. 
The man who looked down on us both from a shelf he 

would say, when he saw how we did,- 
There's good in a man who will bury himself in the 

woods for the sake of his kid. 

The fellow who diets on cocoanut milk and who spends 

all his moments in prayer 
Thinks he has a soul that is finer than silk, that is ready 

its winglets to wear. 

25 



THE PILGRIMAGE 

But what of the man in a mackinaw shirt, one who 

thinks of the girl that he wed, 
Who's wilHng to swamp and to dig in the dirt that the 

wife and the kids may be fed? 

I'm thinking my Mecca is moral as his, though it's lit 

by no altars ablaze; 
I guess my religion is work, all it is, yet I think it 

deserving of praise. 
Perhaps the good Lord, when before Him I go. He 

will hand me a crown and will say, 
"This man had to make him a living below and I guess 

was too busy to pray." 



26 



THE POINT OF VIEW 

The man who owns these metes an' bounds an* tim- 
bered quarter sections, 

Whose hayroads Hnk our campin' grounds in nearly 
all directions, 

Awoke one mornin* in the town to find a blizzard 
blowin', 

An' shivered in his dressin' gown to see that it was 
snowin'. 

Then what did Mr. Main Guy do? He packed his 
fancy duffle, 

His spiketail coat an' skypiece new an' shirt with pleat 
an' ruffle, 

An' hopped aboard his special car attached to 'Frisco 
hummer 

An' hiked for Californya far, the golden land of Sum- 
mer. 

There, while the snows in Michigan are driftin' high as 
houses 

An' blizzards hide the Winter sun while Boreas ca- 
rouses, 

27 



THE POINT OF VIEW 

He*ll play his game of pasture pool upon a meadow 

sunny, 
While us poor skates in regions cool go out an' make 

his money. 

Each pleasant mornin' he'll git up as soon as he is able 
An' find beside his coffee cup fresh grapefruit on the 

table, 
While we will eat at four a. m. beneath a lantern's 

flicker, 
An' masticate our graham gem some earlier an' quicker. 

An' yet we do not envy you with ev'ry little flurry. 

An' if we git a freeze or two, or blizzard, we should 
worry. 

We don't mind Wintertime a bit — there's somethin* 
good about it, 

An' fellahs who are used to it can't git along with- 
out it. 

Your Californya may be fine with Summer altogether, 
But I'll take Michigan for mine, in spite of stormy 

weather. 
There may some pleasure be, perhaps, in little golf 

balls chasin'. 
An' yet our under zero snaps are twenty times as 

bracin'. 

28 




While us poor skates in regions cool go out an' make his money 



THE POINT OF VIEW 

An' I will gamble, in the Spring, when Winter passes 
over. 

An' little birds begin to sing amid the buddin' clover, 

We'll come a-gallivantin' down like some Kentucky- 
stepper, 

Prepared to lick up half the town, we'll feel so full of 
pepper. 

A man requires some kind of change in ev'ry sort of 
diet. 

His appetite to rearrange an' make his pulses riot. 

An' I would rather be a poor up-river grade of bum- 
mer 

Than ev'ry week an* month endure your blamed, eter- 
inal Summer. 



29 



OH, TO BE A GYPSY 

Oh, to be a gypsy, and drive a gypsy van 
Uphill and downhill, and be a gypsy man ! 
Willow for your whipstock, clover in your hat, 
Nothing in your pocketbook at all — ^but what of 
that! 

Tin pans that rattle, tin pails that swing — 
Uphill and downhill merrily they sing ; 
Jingle and jangle, clashing out a tune, 
Making gypsy melody for a gypsy June ! 

Uphill and downhill, a blossom in your mouth. 
Northward in Summertime, Winter in the South. 
Just a van to ward you from the heat or cold, 
No house to shelter you, no house to hold ! 

Money is a burden, dollars are a care, 
But a gypsy wanders, wanders anywhere ; 
Uphill and downhill, gypsy, let us roam, 
Ev'ry night a campfire, ev'ry night a home ! 



30 



THE STAR SPANGLED BANNER FOREVER 

If it's men for your ships, if it's men for your shore, 

If it's men for your guns on the borders, 
If it's guards for your firesides, or fighters for war. 

We are ready and waiting your orders. 
We will lay down the ax, we will hang up the saw, 

We will come from the rafts on the river; 
And we'll fight for the land and we'll fight for the law 

And the Star Spangled Banner forever ! 

If it's men for the sea we have river-rats here 

Who are kings of the drive and the water ; 
If it's men for the line we have swampers to cheer 

All the louder when matters get hotter. 
If it's over the sea you would have us to go, 

There to conquer the foe our endeavor, 
We are ready — and only one ditty we know : 

That's the Star Spangled Banner forever ! 

We have handled a saw, we can handle a gun ; 

We have made us a trail through the timber, 
And we'll swamp you a road to a place in the sun, 

For our arms and our axes are limber. 

31 



THE STAR SPANGLED BANNER FOREVER 

The man in the town is a fancier guy, 
The man in the town may be clever ; 

But we're ready to fight and we're ready to die 
For the Star Spangled Banner forever ! 



22 



THE SIMPLE LIFE 

You skirt in a hammock, you dame in a swing, you 

dude in the stern of a yacht. 
You think you are hep to this picnickin' thing, an' 

close up to Nature youVe got. 
You load up a basket with sissified grub, with sand- 
wiches, olives an' jell. 
An' travel ten miles on a trolley or tub an' say you 

will rough it a spell. 
You carry a napkin to wipe off your chin, a tablecloth 

folded an' neat, 
An' china an' silverware always put in — for otherwise 

how could you eat? 
You set on the grass an' lay chicken away in under a 

maple or pine 
An' rave of "the forest primeval" an' say the life that 

is simple is fine. 

The life that is simple? You gimme a pain. You 

think you've a hero behaved 
If venturin' half of a mile from the train or off of a 

street that is paved. 

33 



THE SIMPLE LIFE 

The life that is simple? — With chicken for lunch to 

eat off a genuine plate? 
You're the funniest, phoniest, buckwheater bunch that 

ever broke loose in the state. 
I tell you, my friends in the lawn tennis suits an' cute 

little red ribbon lids, 
To us in the woods in our snowpacks or boots you're 

nothin' but sissies an' kids. 
The life that is simple? If really you'd like to be a 

real simple life cuss, 
Along up the river to camp take a hike an' put in a 

Winter with us. 

We'll feed you outdoors all you want to be fed, an' 
life will be simple enough ; 

We won't give you butter to put on your bread, but 
stoke you with heartier stuff — 

Pork ribs by the yard that are swimmin' in fat an' 
other choice cuts of the meat. 

Sow belly an' other such dishes as that, rump roast 
now an* then for a treat. 

Our beans you will Hke, if a noodle you've got, be- 
cause that's the easiest way — 

It's better to like 'em, because, like or not, you'll git 
'em four f eedin's a day. 

34 



THE SIMPLE LIFE 

An' dainties we'll give you, of that never fear, along 

with our hunyacks an* coons; 
Your palate we'll please an' your appetite cheer with 

plenty of pickles an' prunes. 

We won't have no tables or pillows or stools, or wait- 
ers to pass things around; 
Tin plates an' tin cups an' steel forks are the tools, 

the grub it is set on the ground. 
The only request we'll be makin' of you when our 

table de hoty you try 
Is that you won't grab the best chunks in the stew or 

carelessly step in the pie. 
You'll have to look out for yourself like the rest, 

there's no one to pour or to carve. 
Perhaps you can't eat any chuck but the best? Of 

course, if you can't, you can starve. 
But, if you partake like the rest of the bunch an' 

shovel some food in your phiz, 
I guess you'll go back to the town with a hunch you 

know what the simple life is. 



35 



IN TOWN ON NEW YEAR'S EVE 

I've hit her up a few myself when Winter days was 

done; 
With twenty million on the shelf a-waitin' for the sun, 
I've brung my Winter stake to town an' moseyed to be 

first 
Of all the lumberjacks to drown an 18-karat thirst ; 
But I renig, an' I give up, an' I lay down an' quit : 
I thought that I could quaff the cup an' hit it up a bit ; 
But of my thirst I ain't so proud, an' I just set an' 

grieve — 
For I ain't in it with your crowd in town on New 

Year's Eve. 

Last year we broke a donkey gear when things was 

goin' fine. 
The boss he says to me, "Come here. You take the 

Number Nine 
An' git to town, an' git repairs, an' back here New 

Year's Day 
Or (sometimes Mister Murphy swears) or there'll be 

hell to pay. 

36 



IN TOWN ON NEW YEAR'S EVE 

An' somethin' else, me fine gossoon, to you I would 

confide : 
If you should see a beer saloon, just tie your thirst 

outside." 
An' so I rode the Russels down right prompt you may 

believe — 
That's how I come to be in town last year on New 

Year's Eve. 

An' there a friend met up with me (they're always on 

the spot. 
Around where you're supposed to be to lead you where 

you're not). 
He asked me just to have a beer. I said, "Nay, nay, 

Pauline ; 
I have a solemn duty here to nursemaid this machine." 
"Well, anyhow," he says, says he, "it wouldn't be 

a sin 
For you to come along an' see us see the New Year 

in." 
I knew the time was hours away when Number Nine 

would leave — 
That's how I come in Smith's Cafe last year on New 

Year's Eve. 

Believe me, Smith's is quite a place, with glitter, glass 

an' gilt, 
With window curtains made of lace, an' fit for Van- 

derbilt. 

37 



IN TOWN ON NEW YEAR'S EVE 

But, fellahs, once inside of there, it wasn't lights an* 

gold i 

That handed me the punch for fair an' knocked me 

stiff an' cold — 
It was another sort of sight that met my backwoods 

eyes. 
It was another thing that night that floored me with 

su'prise ; 
For, while the booze was slippin' down, the thirsty to 

relieve, 
There set the ladies of the town that night on New 

Year's Eve. 

But some of them they didn't set as much as you 
suppose ; 

For, when her throttle she had wet, at times a dame 
arose 

An' led the singin' of a song or startin' of a shout 

To help the merriment along an' see the Old Year out. 

No, these was really ladies, boys, the ladies of the 
town; 

The wives an' sisters liked the noise an' cries of "Drink 
'er down." 

An' one who loudest seemed to be, you hardly will be- 
lieve, 

Had left at home a babe of three, to riot New Year's 
Eve. 

38 



IN TOWN ON NEW YEAR'S EVE 

I don't lay claim to be a saint — in fact, Fm purty 

rough ; 
An' I ain't never heard complaint that I don't drink 

enough. 
But I've opinions just the same, old-fashioned though 

they sound ; 
An' when you try the drinkin' game, an' riotin' around, 
To me a table an' a bar is much alike, I think, 
An', it don't matter where you are, a cocktail is a 

drink. 
So, on occasions such as these, my wife at home I'll 

leave — 
I'll do the boozin', if you please, that's done on New 

Year's Eve. 



39 



THE WIDOW-MAKER 

A loose limb hangs upon a pine three log-lengths from 

the ground, 
A norway tumbles with a whine and shakes the woods 

around. 
The loose limb plunges from its place and zigzags 

down below; 
And Jack is lying on his face — there's red upon the 

snow. 

They'll dress him in a cotton shirt, they'll cross his 

horny hands ; 
They'll dig a hollow in the dirt within the forest lands ; 
They'll put him in a wooden box; they'll wonder 

whence he came. 
And build a monument of rocks without a date or 

name. 

"He got a letter, that I know." "I wonder where it is." 
"I heard him speak not long ago about a wife of his." 
"Employment agent shipped him up — he didn't have a 

cent." 
"He was a most peculiar pup." "He was a gloomy 

gent." 

40 



THE WIDOW-MAKER 

And so they'll talk around the fire a little longer yet; 
But even idle tongues will tire, and even men forget. 
A season passes, and a year. "Why, yes, now thinkin* 

back, 
A widow-maker hit him here. We used to call him 

Jack." 

And far away, 'mid city streets Jack staggers down no 

more, 
A heart, a woman's, madly beats, each knock upon the 

door. 
She's back with mother in the flat. She thought she 

wouldn't care. 
Why does she always jump like that, each step upon 

the stair? 

"For anger burns so quick a flame the year that you 

are wed. 
I said some things just as they came I never should 

have said. 
It takes a little time, I guess, the married life to live — 
To want your way a little less, to suffer and forgive." 

They'll dress him in a cotton shirt, they'll cross his 

horny hands ; 
They'll dig a hollow in the dirt within the forest lands ; 

41 



THE WIDOW-MAKER 

They'll put him in a wooden box; they'll wonder 

whence he came, 
And build a monument of rocks without a date or 

name. 



42 



THE HAIR OF THE DOG 

There was a lumberjack who tried 

To break away from booze, 
An' ev'ry Winter nearly died. 

An' yet the fight'd lose ; 
All Winter he would go without 

An' never take a thing; 
An' then would kill himself, about, 

With whisky in the Spring. 

Last Winter up to camp he come 

An', as he always would, 
Announced that he was through with rum. 

An' through with it for good. 
He sprung a gold-cure of his own : 

To show that he was strong, 
That he could leave the stuff alone, 

He brought a quart along. 

He put that whisky in his bunk ; 

He slept with it at night ; 
But not a drink he ever drunk. 

An' no one saw him tight. 
43 



THE HAIR OF THE DOG 

Each day he said, "All yesterday 

I didn't taste the stuff. 
I guess, old booze," he used to say, 

"You'll see it ain't a bluff." 

A week, a month, the Winter passed, 

But still it was the same — 
For he had won the fight at last 

An' proved that he was game. 
An', when he come to town again, 

He'd lean against the bar 
An' tell the other drinkin' men 

What omadhauns they are. 

No doubt there are a bunch of things 

That worry us a lot ; 
But maybe we could pull their stings 

If close to them we got, 
If we that way of his'd try — 

Just bunked with them a bit, 
Just looked them squarely in the eye, 

An' showed a little grit. 



44 



CALL US, AMERICA! 

Call us, America, 

If you want men ! 
Sound the loud clarion 

Over the camp ; 
We shall come merrily 

Marching again 
Out of the wilderness. 

Out of the damp. 
To the blue firmament 

Fling the blue flag, 
Banner of liberty, 

Red, white and blue, 
High on the mountain-top's 

Uttermost crag — 
Call us, America, 

Call up the crew ! 

Call us, America, 

Out of the wood, 
Out of the timberland. 

If it be war ; 
Call up the lumberjacks, 

They who have stood 

45 



CALL US, AMERICA 

On your red battle-line 

Fighting before. 
When they have challenged you 

We have replied, 
Men from the lumber camp 

Answered them then — 
Guarding the Government, 

Guarding the tide, 
Call us, America, 

If you want men ! 



46 



PROSPERITY 

It's easy to haul on the level, 

A tote-road that's smooth as a floor ; 
You may have to work like the devil 

An' pull till your shoulder is sore ; 
An' even a hill may not best you, 

A little upgrade now an' then — 
But there is one road that will test you, 

The test of both horses an' men. 

An' that is the downgrade, my brother, 

The place where you don't have to pull ; 
The easy road, somehow or other. 

Is one that of trouble is full. 
The road up the hill you can master. 

The long haul that's level may beat, 
But when things are pushin' you faster — 

That's when you must keep on your feet. 

Hard luck seldom conquers a fellah, 

A man of the regular kind ; 
But when you will quit, if you're yellah, 

Is when things are shovin' behind. 

47 



PROSPERITY 

Right then is the danger of ditchin', 
Right then you are wantin' to run — 

So brace yourself back in the britchin' 
An' keep in the middle, my son. 



48 



JUST ALIVE 

A lawg-chain broke, an* a hemlock load 
Come pourin' down on the open road. 

It caught Red Jones where he stood at, 
It caught Red Jones before he knowed 

An' it knocked him down an' it rolled him flat. 

We pried 'em loose an' we pulled Red out. 

He was bunged up right, an' there ain't no doubt. 

He had broke one arm, he had broke one laig, 
He had tore his ear, he had broke his snout, 

An' his ribs was stove like a soft-boiled aig. 

We loaded Red on a lawggin' sleigh 

An' we drove all night an' we drove all day 

Over corduroy, over rut an' rock, 
Till we fetched at last to old Cloquet 

An' landed Red with the sawmill doc. 

When the doc got through of a-mendin' Red, 
An' had him put snug in a trundle bed. 

An' he said that Red maybe might survive. 
Then what do you think that darn fool said ? 

"Well, I'm mighty glad to be just alive !" 

49 



JUST ALIVE 

Then I went downstairs an' I says, says I, 
(To myself, of course), "You're a lucky guy! 

You ain't broke no laig an' ain't broke no rib, 
An' you needn't lay while the days go by 

An' eat from a spoon with a baby's bib." 

An' it done me good just to swing my stem, 
An' my arms — well, I tried out both of them ; 

An' I wiggled all of my fingers five. 
An' I quoted Red's little vocal gem, 

"Well, I'm mighty glad to be just alive !'* 



50 



SUPERANNUATED 

We're breakin' camp on Sunday, we're goin' back to 

town, 
We'll hit the trail on Monday, the last big stick is down. 
I heard it roar an' rumble, I watched the giant fall ; 
I saw the pine-tree tumble, the last old boy of all. 

Old pine, the truth I'm learnin' : I, too, have had my 

day; 
I, too, no more returnin' will come along the way. 
For Time's keen ax has hit me an' sent me to the 

dump; 
For Time has come to git me, an' life is but a stump. 

There may come other seasons an' other fightin' men, 
But I, for Time's good reasons, will not come back 

again. 
I am a dead pine standin' upon a treeless hill ; 
Death waits beside the landin' to claim me as he will. 

For forty years I've tramped it by tote-road an' by 

trail ; 
For forty years I've camped it in rain an' snow an' 

hail; 

51 



SUPERANNUATED 

But now my arm no longer will clear away the pine, 
An* younger men an' stronger will do this work of 
mine. 

An* yet I will not sorrow, though age is in my veins. 
Though but a short to-morrow to such as me remains. 
For, when the strand shall sever, some friend will 

come an' say : 
"Now give him rest forever — for, God, he worked his 

way 1" 



52 



THE BREAKUP 

Now the breakup is here, for the Springtime is near, 

an' the Winter has mootched on its way. 
We have busted our camp an' are off on a tramp to the 

palaces down on the Bay — 
Twenty miles by the trail an' a hunderd by rail in the 

dawghouse along with the con. 
Till we meet up again with them pleasant young men, 

with the lads with the diamonds on. 

Yep, the Springtime is nigh, an' we're sayin' good-by 

to the norway an' pine for a spell ; 
We have cussed out the boss, fed our favorite hoss, an' 

have kicked the young buUcook farewell. 
We have squared with the van for the bills that we ran 

for our Peerless an' mittens an' socks. 
An' we're off for the town with our walks written down 

for the barkeep to change into rocks. 

Twenty miles by the trail an' a hunderd by rail in the 

dawghouse along with the con, 
Till we meet up again with them pleasant young men 

with the aprons an' diamonds on. 

53 



THE BREAKUP 

We've a seven months' thirst to be shortly immersed, 
for we're rolHn' in easy-got wealth ; 

An* the sissified jay who may git in our way he had 
better look out for his health. 

For we're lousey with cash an' we're weary of hash an' 

we long for a sight of the suds. 
We've a campstake to blow with the parties below for 

their licker an' dinners an' duds. 
We've a campstake to spend at the long Winter's end, 

an' they're waitin' to see us come down : 
They are crackin' up ice an' are raisin' the price of 

ev'ry old thing in the town. 

But what do we care? We have lucre to spare, an' 

there's nothin' too good for us now. 
If the limit is ten we will tilt it again, for we're ripe 

for a game or a row. 
There'll be singin' o' nights an' some beautiful fights 

an' a general raisin' of Ned, 
An' that little old spot, if it wants it or not, will be 

painted a delicate red. 

When the campstake is gone an' we see the gray dawn, 
when the fiddles are playin' no more. 

When the pleasure is past an' we're busted at last, with 
a head an' a heart that are sore, 

54 



THE BREAKUP 

With no sighin' or sobs we will hustle for jobs an* will 
thank the good Lord we're alive — 

For there's work an* there's fun an' white water to 
run, up the river along with the drive ! 



55 



WHEN THE DRIVE GOES DOWN 

There's folks that Hke the good dry land, an' folks 

that like the sea, 
But rock an' river, shoal an' sand, are good enough 

for me. 
There's folks that like the ocean crest, an' folks that 

like the town — 
But when I really feel the best is when the drive goes 
down. 

So pole away, you river rats. 

From landin' down to lake — 
There's miles of pine to keep in line, 
A hunderd jams to break ! 

There's folks that like to promenade along the boule- 
vard. 
But here's a spot I wouldn't trade for all their pave- 
ment hard ; 
Ten thousand lawgs by currents birled an' waters 

white that hiss — 
Oh, Where's the sidewalk in the world that's half as 
fine as this ? 

So leap away, you river rats. 

From landin' down to sluice ; 
There's lawgs to run, there's peavey fun 
To break the timber loose ! 

56 




An' ev'ry time you turn a bend the next bend looks the best 



WHEN THE DRIVE GOES DOWN 

An' ev'ry roUin' of a stick that starts her down the 

stream 
An' ev'ry bit of water quick where runnin' ripples 

gleam 
Means gittin' nearer to the end, to wife an' babe an' 

rest — 
An' ev'ry time you turn a bend the next bend looks the 
best. 

Then peg away, you river rats. 

From sluiceway down to mill — 
Each rock you clear will bring you near 
The house upon the hill ! 

There's folks that like the good dry land, an' folks 

that like the sea. 
But rock an' river, shoal an' sand, are good enough 

for me. 
There's folks that like the ocean crest, an' folks that 

like the town — 
But when I really feel the best is when the drive goes 

down! 



S7 



TENDERHEARTED BILL 

The lumberjack he ain't no saint, 

That much I will agree ; 
There are occasions when he ain't 

Just what he ought to be. 
At sayin' prayers he's kind of slack, 

An' kind of fond of drink ; 
An' yet these fellahs ain't as black 

As some folks seem to think. 

Now there was Billy Anderson, 

A jack from Puget Sound, 
A fellah who could lift a ton 

Like some men lift a pound. 
An' yet he had the kindest heart, 

As big as kingdom come — 
You'd always see him take the part 

Of creatures that was dumb. 

Bill never any horse would whip, 
No matter how he balked, 

An' on an extry longish trip 
Big Bill got out an' walked. 

58 



TENDERHEARTED BILL 

Bill never yet was known to kick 

The meanest yellow cur ; 
An*, when that spotted calf was sick, 

How Bill took care of her ! 

Why, I remember once we had 

A cat around the camp ; 
She wandered in so thin an* sad, 

A reg'lar little tramp. 
Bill fed her meat an' fed her milk 

An* give her half his chuck, 
Until her coat was fine as silk — 

She surely was in luck. 

Bill Anderson he wouldn't hurt 

(So tenderhearted he) 
The mole that burrowed in the dirt 

Or bird upon the tree. 
There's nothin' riled Bill Anderson 

As for some big galoot 
To start to plaguin', just for fun, 

Some helpless little brute. 

One night the clerk he tied a can 

Upon the kitten's tail 
An' turned her loose outdoors — an', man, 

You ought to seen her sail ! 

59 



TENDERHEARTED BILL 

Then Bill, the tenderheartedest 
Of men, just give a gulp 

An* jumped upon that joker's chest 
An' beat him to a pulp. 



60 



STONY BROOK 

Oh, the Stony Brook is foamin' where the boulders 
show their teeth, 
Just a-waitin' for a chance to start a jam ; 
There is water white a-combin' on the granite under- 
neath, 
There's a lovely chance for trouble at the dam. 
They will sluice her just at daylight an' they'll let a 
million through. 
They will ram her full of timber to the brim, 
They will sluice her in the gray light, an' there'll be 
some work to do 
For Johnny Long an' them along with him. 

Yes, I think it more'n likely that there will, 
But there's half a hunderd peavies on the hill, 

And there's half a hunderd rats 

That are handier'n cats 
Just a-longin' for the pond above to spill. 

They have mootched it down from Percy's, they have 
hiked it from the rear, 
They have gethered in from ev'ry blasted camp, 
An' they're ready for the mercies of a brook like this*n 
here. 
An' they ain't afraid of bubbles an' of damp. 

61 



STONY BROOK 

So it's jam, you norway devils, an' it's jam, you crazy 
pine — 
We will show you how a man can be a mink; 
We will join you in your revels an' we'll whip you 
into line 
Or we'll leave our bones to whiten in the drink. 

We may leave our bones below to wash away, 
We may give the rocks a choicer bit for play, 
We may die along with you. 
But we'll drive you, drive you through. 
An' we'll land you safe an' solid at Cloquet. 

Now a j ill-poke in the alders is a mighty measly 
thing — 
It can tie a lot of timber in a knot ; 
But a pair of granite boulders can a hunderd thousand 
wing 
Till there's nothin' that'll budge it but a shot. 
But, before you try the powder or to break her with 
the juice, 
Hand some peavies to the river rats an* jacks. 
We will roll her an' we'll crowd her an' we'll break 
the timber loose, 
We will break her, or a half a hunderd backs. 

62 



STONY BROOK 

We may break a half a hunderd men in two, 
But we'll git that Injun timber safely through ; 

We will pry the Stony Brook 

Wider open than a book — 
Yes, there's work for Johnny Long an' us to do ! 



63 



THE WINNER 

He had come up from the ranks. He drove 

A yoke of steers in the good old days 
When Michigan all was a treasure trove 

And men made money in various ways. 

He watched his chance and he made his plays 
And he worked at night till the stars were dim- 

And presently people began to praise, 
And even at last to envy him. 

Now, that is the mark of a true success : 

When you're doing well and the world is glad 
You have partly won — but the thing, I guess. 

Is to do so well that the world gets mad. 

When the people talk of the luck you had 
And begin to wink and to shake the head 

And to hint of ways that were dark and bad, 
Then youVe won success — so he often said. 

But he, 'way down in his heart, he knew 

What success had cost, how success had come: 

It came on the long trail to the Soo, 
It came in the timber of the Thumb, 

64 



THE WINNER 

It came on nights when his legs were numb 
With the wear of labor and hurt of cold, 

When he asked the future, and found it dumb, 
Where the highway lay to the land of gold. 

But he worked and figured and fought and planned, 

He watched his chance as a fighter must, 
And he hammered fate with a good right hand 

In the Winter snow, in the Summer dust; 

And others might falter and others rust 
But his will shone on like a shining sword. 

With an endless hope and a tireless thrust. 
As a yeoman fought for his ancient lord. 

It put the wrinkles upon his brow, 

It put the gray in his yellow hair. 
It gave him a brand of his own, somehow, 

That none of the envious ever wear. 

For labor had written its record there 
In his shoulders round and his fingers bent — 

On his face had printed the stamp of care — 
And something, too, of a great content. 

There is something envy can never reach. 
There is something envy can never touch 

With its keenest word or its crudest speech, 
When a man has labored and suffered much. 

65 



THE WINNER 

For what are the idle words of such 
By the glad approval of one's own soul? 

Their words of envy to those who clutch 
The thing they sought for, the golden goal? 

He is walking down through the final years 

(He passes silently on the way), 
And the vale behind has been wet with tears 

And the hills behind have been glad with day. 

And do you think that the things we say, 
The sneer of envy, the laugh of spite. 

Could bow the head of the man of gray 
That has held erect in the hardest fight? 

For the thing we win in the war of life 

It is not the gold, it is not the fame. 
But the inner sense that through all the strife 

Unchanged, unfaltering, still we came. 

We have won our own, not the world's acclaim. 
The thing we wanted to do have done; 

And the world may praise or the world may blame — 
But our own souls know we have worked, and won. 



(^ 



THE HERO MEDDLERS 

So now they are pinnin' of medals on people, I see by 

the news : 
They're huntin' the highways for heroes an' beatin' 

the byways for clues, 
An' ketchin', convictin' an' markin', while Andy more 

martyrs pursues. 

That's all very pleasant an' proper, but leads me to 

wonderin' what 
They figger down east is a hero, they figger is brave 

an' is not ; 
I bet, while they're huntin' for heroes, a few of our 

own we have got — 

A few of our own on the river, that never no medals 

will wear 
Because all the things they are doin' they always are 

doin' out there, 
With no one to 'specially notice an' no one to 'specially 

care. 

67 



THE HERO MEDDLERS 

It*s courage to fight the quickwater a moment some 
mortal to save, 

It's courage the rapids to rassle an' rescue some fool 
from the grave ; 

But to do it for bread an' for butter all day ain't con- 
sidered so brave. 

I reckon we won't git no medals up here for the 
chances we take ; 

It's just for the wife an' the babies, the rent an' a gro- 
cery stake 

We come at the call of the river, the jam an' the roll- 
way to break. 

We won't git no thousand a-livin', we won't wear no 
ornaments dead ; 

There ain't none of us that are heroes — we're rats of 
the river instead ; 

An' we ain't runnin' rapids for glory — we're just fight- 
in' trouble for bread. 



68 



CHAUDIERE 

From a pathway of quiet unstirred by commotion, 

From the forests of green to the dweUings of brown, 
In quest of the river, in quest of the ocean. 
The Ottawa waters come peacefully down 

And, here by the town. 

Throw aside the dull gown 

Of their up-river green 

For the shine and the sheen 
And the gossamer glory of rapids that run. 
For the glitter of jewels that flash in the sun. 

Here they leap 

From their sleep 

And in majesty sweep 
Through a gateway of stone, through the cataract's lair, 
Where the leonine rocks shake the mist from their hair 

And startle the shore 

With the roar 

Of Chaudiere. 

From the hush of the forest where censers are swing- 
ing, 

Where the lilies unfold and the wild roses bloom. 
In quest of the world where the saw-song is singing, 

The Ottawa timber comes down to the boom ; 

69 



CHAUDIERE 

And here waits the flume 

Frothing white with the spume, 

Frothing white with the spray 

Of the waters at play. 
Now the channel is opened that leads to the slide, 
And now safe by the rapids the timber-cribs glide. 

Just a flash 

And a crash 

And a plunge and a splash 
In the calm of the stream where the waters run fair — 
And all vainly the rocks in their mid-river lair 

Shall threaten them more 

With the roar 

Of Chaudiere. 

From the land of the forest, the cabins dim-lighted, 
From the camp in the woodland asleep in the sun, 
In quest of the world that in dreams they have sighted 
The men of the shanties come down for their fun, 

Come down ev'ry one 

When the wild work is done 

As the river at play 

Leaps to ripples and spray 
When it sniffs the St. Lawrence and glimpses the goal 
Where the salt breezes freshen and long billows roll. 

To be free 

As the sea 

Ev'ry man longs to be 

70 



CHAUDIERE 

'Mid the lights of the town, 'mid the smiles of the fair — 
Then what shall the sturdy young shantyman care 

Though tremble the shore 

With the roar 

Of Chaudiere? 

But the years hurry by and the years hurry onward, 

The ax-stroke is busy on hill and in glen; 
As fade the pale stars when the night travels dawn- 
ward, 
The trees in the sky tumble earthward again. 
They shall vanish — and then 
Shall the shoutings of men 
Diminish and die 
Where the waters run high. 
O you maid in the town, hold your shantyman dear 
For the men of the river shall vanish from here. 
They shall sweep 
To the deep 

Where the centuries sleep 
And shall leave but a kiss and a memory fair. 
Like the waters that flow to the mystic Out There, 
Returning no more 
To the shore 

Of Chaudiere. 



71 



THE PRICE 

The drive it ain't such easy graft that I would recom- 
mend 
To any gink to ride the drink, an', least of all, a friend. 
It's up at four an' sluice a dam or sack a swampy rear 
Until the sun has got the run an' baby stars appear. 

It ain't no job to recommend 

To anybody that's a friend. 

I've heard some guy from off the plains who'd punched 

the cows a spell 
Describe the same an' cuss an' claim the cowboy life is 

hell- 
When cattle beller in the night an' fifty head go down, 
When bulls stampede an' rivers bleed from trampled 
banks of brown, 

While gray coyotes wait to browse 
Upon the flanks of wounded cows. 

But, Mr. Puncher from the plains, you've never tack- 
led this, 

Have tried to put a Winter's cut to town without a 
miss. 

12 



THE PRICE 

A bughouse bull may scare a herd an' break a hunderd 

bones, 
An' so a lawg can play the dawg an' snub among the 
stones 

An' pile a norway drive so deep 
A crew will lose a week of sleep. 

My puncher friend has seen a man an' boss go out to 
mill 

The bloodshot eyes an' sweatin' thighs an' flyin' feet 
that kill, 

Has seen a man an' boss go down before that sea of 
meat. 

Has seen it pound 'em in the ground beneath a thou- 
sand feet — 

Has seen the longhorns have their fling 
An', where a Man was, leave a Thing. 

But I have seen a river-rat, a peavey in his mit, 
Below a jam the peavey ram beneath the breast of it ; 
An' I have heard the timber break, have heard it groan 

an' whine, 
Have heard him cry an' seen him die before a wall of 
pine — 

Have seen the foam a second red 
That never yet give up its dead. 

7Z 



THE PRICE 

An* so, I guess, it always is : the cowboy or the rat 
They may be slick, but Death is quick an' cattier than 

that. 
As long as men must fight for bread, must fight an' 

work an' cuss. 
Some other guy must go an' die to pay the Price for us. 
For men who toil on land or tide 
Have Death, the foreman, at their side. 



74 



THE SIGNAL 

The time that Peary found the Pole 

I saw the strangest thing; 
My blanket 'round me in a roll, 

I camped beside a spring. 
'Twas when outdoors you like to lay 

These early Summer nights — 
An' in the north, so far away, 

I saw the Northern Lights. 

I saw the blue sky overhead. 

An' then, in flashin' bars, 
I saw the stripes of white an' red. 

An', over them, the stars. 
I saw the red an' white an' blue 

Up there at Peary's goal — 
I saw the Stars an' Stripes, an' knew 

That he had found the Pole ! 



75 



THE IRISH 

The sawln' of lumber, 
The falUn' of norway, 
The old occupation 
Of drivin' the pine, 
Has brought any number 
Of men to our doorway — 
Brought every nation 
A-crossin' the brine. 
But, of every faction. 

From swampers to sorters, 
Who run on the rivers 
Or work in the mill, 
The quickest in action 
In murmurin' waters. 
The cattiest drivers, 
Are Irishers still ! 

Folks talk of Quebeckers 
From Saguenay fountains, 
They talk of world-beaters 
From valleys of spruce. 
They talk of the crackers 
From Tennessee mountains. 
The sow-belly eaters 
An' drinkers of juice, 

76 



THE IRISH 

They talk of the Oles, 
The foreigner stranger 

Who works when the flood of 
The pine is at hand — 
But the holy of holies, 
The altar of danger, 
Is red with the blood of 
The emerald land 1 

The hottest in fighting 
The thirstiest drinkin', 
The loudest in prayin' 
When prayin' is due, 
The slowest in writin', 
The quickest in thinkin'. 
The wittiest sayin' 

The thoughts of a crew — 
When timber is jammin', 
When trouble is makin'. 
When water is mirish 
Or bubbles alive, 
The universe damning 

The lawg-jam a-breakin' — 
Oh, there are the Irish, 
The kings of the drive ! 



n 



CHRISTELLA 

I say that I am done with them — 

One memory has turned to gall. 
I have my little fun with them — 

I have my fun, and that is all. 
A woman square ? There never was 

A woman who was square to me. 
Christella — if there ever was 

A living devil, it was she. 

'Twas Winter in the timber yet 

But on the river it was Spring. 
And, God, how I remember yet 

The woods, the waters, ev'rything. 
A vale like that one yonder there, 

A road that ran across a hill — 
We used to come to wander there ; 

'Twas Spring, and it was Winter still. 

One night she picked a flow'r or two, 

These faded red anemones. 
I think we walked an hour or two — 

That was the night she gave me these. 

78 



CHRISTELLA 

She said the same things o'er and o'er, 
The story that will never tire ; 

And, fool, I worshiped more and more. 
And all the sky was red as fire. 

They caught them many miles away. 

The woman and the man at last ; 
But something drove the smiles away 

From that Christella of the past. 
"You do not know !" she cried to me 

And looked that look of old again ; 
I guess she would have lied to me. 

If I had let her, even then. 

I struck her — God forgive me that ; 

A woman is a woman still. 
But God He will believe me that 

I struck when other men would kill. 
That night, that minute, to the West 

I turned my face forever more ; 
And not a woman through the West 

Has ever passed my cabin door. 

My name McKInney ? Yes, it was — 
And many more have done the same. 

How is it that you guess it was 
Who know me by another name ? 

79 



CHRISTELLA 

She said it ? Hold the candle. So 
Another reaps the wage of sin? 

Be careful how you handle — Go 
And get the doctor ! Bring her in ! 



SEED 

My front yard ain't no garden spot — 
It's chips an' cans an' other junk, 

A whisky bottle, like as not, 

Smashed on a woodpile by a drunk — 

My front yard is a dumpin' ground 

For all the broken stuff around. 

An' yet the other day I seen 

A crack appear — then peepin' through 
There come a little leaf of green, 

An' in the mornin' there was two ; 
An' now to-day looks up at me 
A smilin' young anemone. 

I never knew that it was there 

All Winter through awaitin' Spring, 

I never thought a place so bare 
Could ever grow so sweet a thing ; 

Yet all the while the tiny seed 

Was waitin' Springtime to be freed. 

81 



SEED 

Last night a preacher come to camp 
An' sung a song an' read the Word, 

An', underneath the dirt an' damp 
An' moral junk, a blossom stirred, 

A thing I could not understand : 

I looked — an' Christ held out His hand. 

'Twas not the preacher done it all, 
'Twas not his sermon or his smile: 

A-listenin' for Jesus' call 

My soul had waited all the while — 

The seed that heard the parson's pray'r 

A word my mother planted there. 



82 



THE SELF-MADE MAN 

The yarn is short. Sit down. Fm glad to tell 

The little to be told. Hard work — ^that's all. 
Self-made ? I guess that fits me pretty well. 

I surely didn't have what you would call 
A silver spoon in any mouth of mine 

When I was born, for we were poor as mice- 
A homestead eighty in a land of pine ; 

An even hundred was the purchase price. 

Lord, how my father slaved — my mother, too. 

I was the oldest, and I got a share. 
How fast the babies came and troubles grew, 

While still in poverty we wallowed there. 
Yet father was the easy-going kind, 

And scraped along, as happy as could be ; 
And even mother didn't seem to mind — 

But I said soon and certain, "Not for me !" 

There was a girl — there nearly always is. 

I swore that I would never offer her, 
My wife, a home like father offered his, 

The dingy shanty of a laborer. 

83 



THE SELF-MADE MAN 

They want good clothes, they want a thousand 
things 

The ordinary man may never guess ; 
They want some money — it is money brings 

To most of us the most of happiness. 

I left the farm and struck out for myself. 

I never did get back in all the years. 
Work soon put poor old dad upon the shelf, 

And mother long ago was through with tears. 
I often used to wonder how things went 

Back there at home — I bet that they were bad — 
But I worked on with just one fixed intent : 

To have a little more than father had. 

Now, I knew timber — dad had taught me that. 

He never had the gumption, though, to get 
His hands on any of it. He just sat 

Asleep 'mid riches. He just sat and let 
No better men grab miles and miles of it, 

Good old cork pine, as good as ever grew ; 
But when the trail to virgin woods I hit 

I knew the game, and knew just what to do. 

So I got pine — a forty, eighty, then 
A quarter section. Every copper cent 

That I could save or get from other men 
Into some little bunch of timber went. 

84 



THE SELF-MADE MAN 

I drove a team, I jobbed, I built a mill, 
And I knew every trick of every trade. 

For thirty years I dug away until 
I found a little fortune I had made. 

And here I am — not rich as riches go ; 

You've got to have a million in these days 
To call you rich — ^but, if I had to, though, 

Perhaps five hundred thousand I could raise. 
Not old — I don't call crowding sixty old ; 

I'm quick and spry as many younger are ; 
And there is not a luxury that's sold 

I can not buy — ^my club, my yacht, my car. 

The girl ? They're all alike, these women are. 

That's long ago — I neither care nor hate. 
But he was there, and, while I wandered far. 

She married him, and wrote she could not wait. 
This life at best is just a rotten game. 

You sometimes wonder why you must exist. 
I worked, I won — but few the joys that came. 

I guess that there was something that I missed. 



85 



THE MAN WHO COULD PLAY 

As reckless an' roarin* a gang of rats 

As ever broke jams or laws 
That landed the drive at the Sanford flats 

That Spring of the year it was. 
An*, when it was snug in the sortin' boom, 

The company paid us off, 
We crowded the bar for to booze consume 

Like pigs at a f eedin* troff. 

I needn't say just where we wound it up, 

That beautiful jamboree ; 
We'd gargled our thirst with the brimmin' cup, 

As mellah as men could be. 
They had a pi-anna ag'inst the wall, 

The ladies had brought to town ; 
A wanderin' boozer whose name was Paul 

In front of the same set down. 

His name it was Paul. That was all we knew, 

Exceptin' his brand of dope : 
He guzzled enough for a lawggin' crew 

An' pulled at a paper rope. 

86 



THE MAN WHO COULD PLAY 

Paul fondled his fingers along the keys 

An' tested her with a chord ; 
Then lowered his head, an* he bent his knees 

An' started to play — an', Lord ! 

The thunder it roared like a Summer storm. 

Wind whistled among the boughs ; 
Then skies were blue an' the sun was warm — 

In meddahs we heard the cows, 
In meddahs we listened to tinklin' bells, 

An' far an' away we heard 
The drippin' of water in coolin' wells. 

An' somewhere a trillin' bird. 

As soft as the stir of an evenin' breeze, 

As loud as the roar of falls, 
He fingered all over the ivory keys. 

That boy in the overhalls. 
And, when he had stopped an' he raised his head 

An' give to his hair a fling. 
We clapped an' we clapped, but he only said, 

*T used to could play the thing." 



87 



FUNGI 

They sit on their silken cushions and say what a terrible 

thing 
To be the wife of a woodsman, the queen of a jungle 

king- 
To dwell in an humble dwelling, to live on a shanty 

floor. 
With nothing but house and husband, and a red rose 

by the door. 
But I, I am sick of longing, and I, I am dying here 
For a strong man's home in a clearing and the love of 

a pioneer. 

They prattle of fads and fashions, of dinners and balls 
and nights, 

These powdered and pretty fungi, these gossiping para- 
sites ; 

And men who are working wonders and men who are 
doing deeds 

Must dally and dance attendance, and humor their 
dainty needs. 

They talk of their virgin virtues, and sell them for 
clothes and food — 

While some brave heart wants a Woman to battle the 
solitude. 

88 




For there are the ivoods to people, and there is the trail to make 



FUNGI 

I'm sick of their silly chatter, the cluck of the idle hen ; 

Is none of the work for women, and all of the work 
for men? 

They house, and they feed and clothe us, and we who 
have love to sell 

Are ready to be their women if only they pay us well. 

But not for the highest bidder God ever has made the 
bride : 

He made us a helpmeet to him, to walk by the work- 
er's side. 

I long for the tangled forest, I long for the land that's 
new! 

For there is the work for women, for women and men 
to do ; 
** For there are the woods to people, and there is the 
trail to make, 

For the sake of the God who made us, for the sake of 
a good man's sake ; 

For that is the work for doing, and that is the woman 
of worth — 

And I'd follow my man, if he asked me, to the utter- 
most ends of the earth ! 



89 



A DAY 

This is the end of our day, my dear. 

Nay, I know that the sun is glowing 
High on the mountain above us here — 

'Tis the smile of a friend in going. 
Warmer now on your cheek he lingers. 

Warmer now than in day's high noon, 
Touching your eyes with his tender fingers, 

Knowing the night shall come so soon. 

This is the light of the hour of parting. 

This is the holiest hour of all, 
When the tears from the heart are starting 

While the shades of the evening fall. 
This is the hour when we closer cling 

Than in our moment that was the maddest ; 
This is the fading of everything, 

This is the happiest hour and saddest. 

Nay, you smile and you look to meadows 
Still a-swim in the shimmering sun ; 

See you not in the woods the shadows, 
Telling us two that our day is done ? 

90 



A DAY 

There are shades in the merriest day, 
In the woods there are shadows ever ; 

There is an ending to every way, 
There is an hour for us all to sever. 

Life is a parting and not a meeting, 

A comradeship of a lonely mile, 
Only an hour for a passing greeting, 

Only a friendship for a while. 
Surely the God that has brought us twain 

Into the world to walk together 
Somewhere shall give us two again 

Another day in the Summer weather. 



91 



TO A CHIPMUNK 

Now IVe caught you ; hush your squeakin' ; 

Now I've got you with the goods. 
You're the fellah who's been sneakin* 

To my shanty from the woods. 
You're the fellah who's been makin* 

Such a nuisance of himself ; 
You're the fellah who's been takin' 

Soda crackers from the shelf. 

Thought I'd think a rat had done it. 

Thought you fooled me — an' you did. 
When you heard me comin', run it 

For your burrow an' you hid. 
But to-day I caught you squarely, 

Caught you with a cracker, too ; 
But to-day I caught you fairly. 

Now what shall I do with you ? 

Don't you know that diggin' under 

Some one's shanty any time, 
Totin' off your little plunder, 

Mr. Chipmunk, is a crime ? 

92 



TO A CHIPMUNK 

Oh, you're sorry, an' you're squealin'. 
Now I've got you dead-to-rights ; 

Don't you know it's wicked stealin' 
Crackers, even little bites ? 

Folks a-swipin' from a cabin 

For their crime had ought to pay, 
Folks a neighbor's goods a-grabbin' 

Should be punished right away. 
But it seems there now an' then are 

People like you that I kaow ; 
Maybe you're no worse tlmi men are— 

So I guess I'll let you go. 



93 



INTERPRETERS 

There are some thoughts too sad to put in words, 
There are some joys too deep for accents gay. 

I think that that is why God makes the birds 
Such things to say. 

There are some moments full of melodies 
Too sweet for harps or any human thing. 

I think that that is why God makes the trees 
Such songs to sing. 

There are some souls that down life's highway pass 
Too fair to last in hope's bright diadem. 

I think that that is why God makes the grass 
To shelter them. 

There are some hours too lonely for the light, 
When laughing sunrays but intruders seem. 

I think that that is why God makes the night. 
To sleep, and dream. 



94 



HOLY GROUND 

You have made holy ground of this wild land amid the 
hemlock trees, 

On ev'ry flower have left your kiss, have left your 
voice on ev'ry breeze. 

You came for but a little while ; you went — forever it 
may be ; 

But now the sunshine is your smile, the stars your ten- 
derness to me. 

You have made holy ground of all the paths we walked, 

the ways we knew. 
And pure as Heaven's jasper wall the hills that once 

encompassed you. 
You have shut sin from out this place, there is no evil 

word nor thought — 
By your divinity of face have here a holy wonder 

wrought. 

You have made holy ground of life wherever life the 

way may lead, 
Have taught me honor in the strife and decency in 

ev'ry deed. 

95 



HOLY GROUND 

Where'er I go, whatever the goal, however far my feet 

may stray, 
I feel the presence of your soul and know a saint has 

passed this way. 



96 



INTERCESSION 

Come prop me on the pillow, nurse, 

So I can see the sun ; 
Supposin' it should make me worse. 

My time is nearly done. 
An' one day more or one day less 

It takes or gives to me 
1*11 never notice, nurse, I guess. 

In all eternity. 

A fellah never knows how well 

He likes that world out there, 
That world in spite of all its hell, 

Its work an' pain an' care. 
Until he lays here white an' weak 

Like me upon a cot, 
Just startin' out some world to seek 

That he has most forgot. 

How green the trees look ! an' the grass- 
Yet they are no more green 

Than was the trees I used to pass, 
I used to pass unseen. 

97 



INTERCESSION 

How blue the sky looks ! an' how deep, 
How far away it seems ! — 

It seems a sort of sea of sleep 
Beside a shore of dreams. 

An' life seems such a little while 

When you go out to sea — 
Why, I remember ev'ry smile 

That ever come to me ! 
You smoothed the pillow where I lay 

A little while ago, 
An' it was just the other day 

My mother did it so. 

My mother! Girl, I went away 

An' never said good-by. 
I never watched her hair turn gray, 

I did not see her — die. 
An' just to think, she laid like me. 

When all her work was done, 
An' looked acrost that sleepy sea, 

A-wishin' for her son, 

A-longin' for me — an' I know 

She's longin' for me still : 
Beyond the sea where I must go 

She's standin' on a hill, 

98 



INTERCESSION 

She's standin' as she used to stand, 
When down the path I'd roam, 

To take her baby by the hand 
Again to lead him home. 

An' God Himself, with all His laws, 

Won't stop me passin' through — 
I know He'll let me in, because 

My mother ast Him to. 
I wish I hadn't been so rough, 

With drink an' sin an' oath — 
An' yet her soul is white enough, 

I know, to save us both. 



99 



A NIGHT LIKE THIS 

A night like this, alone beside the fire, 

The world shut out, and by the world shut in, 
The woods around as vibrant as a lyre, 

Where all sounds end, and where all sounds 
begin — 
Ah, then the soul becomes a harp of gold 

That thrills with thoughts as tender as a kiss, 
With visions, dreams, and memories of old, 

Alone beside the fire a night like this. 

It is so still the very heart may hear 

Its own heart beat : a cricket in the grass. 
The whisper of the nightwind very near, 

The bending of a bough to let it pass. 
Then in the deep, mysterious, silent wood 

A sleeping bird stirs softly in its nest. 
The pine-tree croons a song of motherhood. 

Each fragrant note a lullaby to rest. 

Afar I hear the crystal waters strike 

The little stones, melodiously light. 
There is, in all the world, no music like 

The sound of waters running in the night : 

100 



A NIGHT LIKE THIS 

So clear, so cool, so musical, so sweet, 
To weary hearts as welcome as the touch 

Of velvet grasses to the weary feet, 
To weary feet that labor overmuch. 

Above is spread the canopy of stars, 

Resplendent jewels on a robe of blue : 
The pretty Pleiades, majestic Mars, 

That bathe the earth with silver and with dew. 
Peace, peace, is written on the azure dome, 

And earth and heaven bridge the old abyss. 
Alone beside the fire the heart goes home, 

Alone beside the fire a night like this. 

Upon the wall of green the shadows play, 

As dies the fire or rouses into flame. 
There lies to-morrow's road that leads away, 

And here the tangled trail by which I came. 
A spark flies upward, glowing in the air, 

To follow it the vision upward turns ; 
Now it is there, and now it is not there ; 

But still unchanged old Mars above me burns. 

O Memory, you are like my little fire. 
My lonely fire beside the lonely trail : 

Here are the ashes of the old desire. 
The old desire enkindled but to fail. 

101 



A NIGHT LIKE THIS 

Old thoughts leap up, as flames a moment glow, 

The resurrection of a holy kiss ; 
Old joys, old pains, of other nights I know, 

Alone beside the fire a night like this. 

Yea, other nights — a night like this in June : 

The same half-silence, same divine repose; 
Upon the lawn a fountain's tinkling tune, 

And, in the dark, the white face of a rose — 
A face like hers, a face now white with fear ; 

Upon the rose a diamond of dew. 
Upon her face the dewdrop of a tear ; 

And I was there, and that white rose was you. 

That is the mightiest moment of a man. 

The most remembered, holiest of all. 
When doubt withdrew and perfect faith began — 

When first for him he saw a teardrop fall. 
He shall remember, all the weary miles. 

No idle moment in the happy years 
When once his laughter laughed her into smiles, 

But some sad hour he talked her into tears. 

Half guilt, half glory, will that moment be : 
A shame that he had saddened one so fair ; 

Half guilt, half glory that for such as he 

She bared her soul and wept, and did not care. 

102 



A NIGHT LIKE THIS 

He would have suffered to have saved her sighs, 
Yet exquisitely sweet that hour apart ; 

For smiles come lightly to a woman's eyes, 
But sorrow wells from fountains of the heart. 

You wore a scarf of silver, and I dreamed 

That it was moonlight fallen from the blue, 
A mantle out of heaven that be-seemed 

An angel out of heaven such as you. 
It lay across your shoulder. I have seen 

A square of moonlight lying on the grass. 
And years rolled back that long had rolled between, 

And almost I have thought I saw you pass — 

I saw you pass in your old beauty, as 

I saw you pass my campfire even now ; 
For this the magic that the moonlight has, 

The moonlight has a night like this, somehow. 
And once the nightwind touched me on the cheek 

(That other night you touched it with a kiss) 
And on the wind I heard your whisper speak — 

For such things happen on a night like this. 

And I remember that you looked not down 
That night in June, but lifted up your face 

Like that white rose imprisoned in the town 
That made, like you, the town a holy place — 

103 



A NIGHT LIKE THIS 

That you looked up at me and at the stars, 
Not shy with shame but sad with questioning, 

As though you looked beyond their very bars, 
In search of something there to which to cling. 

I knew, you knew, that here had come the end. 

We heard the step of him of better right; 
And I could stay and play the part of friend. 

Or I could take the trail I tread to-night. 
I took the trail — ^there was no more to know ; 

I took the trail — there was no more to do ; 
But you walk with me every trail I go. 

And every campfire is a dream of you. 

And, if I doubt, yea, I who doubt no more, 

The stars make answer, answer "Do we change ?" 
The river follows its accustomed shore. 

Unaltered is the granite mountain range. 
Have I not seen you pour upon the stone 

The sacrifice of sorrow, tenderly? 
A night like this beside the fire alone 

If my heart ask, my own heart answers me. 

A night like this alone beside the fire 

I look, like you, beyond the wall of trees. 

I ask the stars, the stars that do not tire. 
For what they wait the weary centuries. 

104 



A NIGHT LIKE THIS 

I ask the stars, that wait and alter not ; 

Perhaps they wait, as wait the souls of men, 
Until some time, some time more long than 
thought, 

When stars and men may claim their own again. 



105 



UNDERGROWTH 

It ain't the trees that block the trail, 

It ain't the ash or pine; 
For, if you fall or if you fail, 

It was some pesky vine 
That tripped you up, that threw you down, 

That caught you unawares : 
The big things you can walk aroun' — 

But watch the way for snares. 

In life it ain't the biggest things 

That make the hardest load ; 
It ain't the burden big that brings 

Defeat upon the road. 
Some fault you hardly knew you had 

May hurt more than you think — 
Some little habit that is bad 

May put you on the blink. 



106 



THE MAN'S ROAD 

Let us sit here on the porch, my son. 

Soon the night will come up the valley 
Lighting her candles one by one, 

Hiding the mill and the lumber alley. 
Soon the night will come slowly stealing 

Over the housetops and the street ; 
Soon the night will come gently healing 

All of the hurt of the Summer's heat. 

You are weary, my boy, to-night. 

And I know it is not the working. 
In your heart that was always light 

There is another sadness lurking. 
Toil may weary the limbs that bear you, 

Toil may weary the arm that's strong ; 
But there are other wears that wear you — 

And I have watched you, son, and long. 

Something you wished for, and you lost, 
Something, sonny, your life and glory ; 

Nothing now but the cruel cost — 
No, you never need tell the story. 

107 



THE MAN'S ROAD 

But my hand, boy, is on your shoulder, 
Not your father — your elder chum; 

You are but younger, I but older — 
And on the man's road both have come. 

Son, you weep for your heart's desire ; 

Grief has folded her mantle o'er you. 
Now where the son stands stood the sire 

Maybe, my boy, long years before you. 
For the lives that are all around us 

Run like rivers, as still and deep. 
Many see us, but none may sound us ; 

Each has his secret thought to keep. 

Only the surface we behold — 

If a shadow, a shadow fleeting. 
Never the story may men unfold 

Far too sacred to bear repeating. 
Vexed perhaps at a little bother, 

Glad perhaps at a little joy — 
This the man that you thought your father 

Maybe you did not know him, boy. 

Let us sit here on the porch, my son. 

Soon the night will come up the valley 
Lighting her candles one by one, 

Hiding the mill and the lumber alley. 

108 



THE MAN'S ROAD 

And my hand, boy, is on your shoulder, 
Not your father — ^your elder chum ; 

You are but younger, I but older — 
And on the man's road both have come. 



109 



CHRISTINA 

Christina don't daintily dress, 

Christina don't giggle an' gush. 
She ain't got a dollar, I guess; 

Christina slings hash for her cush. 

She sweats in the dinin'-room rush ; 
She scolds now an' then more or less ; 
She's boss of the boardin'-house mess 

An' rassles the coffee an' mush. 

But where can you show me the dame 

That has such a hold on a chap? 
There isn't a guy in the game 

But jumps when she gives him a slap. 

She's queen of the White River map ; 
She sets all the mill-crew aflame ; 
For her all the scrappers are tame ; 

For her all the cowards'll scrap. 

Christina has blue in her eyes, 
Christina has red in her hair; 

It wouldn't cause any su'prise 
If maybe she happened to swear. 

110 



CHRISTINA 

But noodle ? Christina is there ; 
She's sized up the whole of the guys. 
Christina is decent an' wise ; 

Christina has gingham to wear. 

Christina, some female in town 

Would pity your lot, if she knew. 
She wouldn't think much of your gown. 

Think less of the work that you do. 

She'd smile at your gingham of blue ; 
She'd laugh at your calico brown. 
But you can look up an' not down — 

Christina, my hat's off to you ! 



Ill 



THREE MORNINGS 

You know the kind of morning that it was 

(There are three mornings I remember well — 
This was the first) : The east a thing of gauze 

Where one by one the filmy curtains fell. 
So delicately fell, the morning light 

Came now from nowhere, only grew and grew — 
A little more of day and less of night 

Until the west and east were equal blue. 

That was the morning we came driving home 

After the weekly dance at Coopersville, 
When first the grayness stole across the dome; 

Remember it was three we danced until? 
We did not hurry ; up the woodland road 

I let the old horse amble as he would; 
For driving lovers seldom use the goad. 

And life that morning was so very good. 

There may be mortals who have never seen 

A morning in the wilderness arise. 
Or learned the hundred shades there are of green, 

The hundred tints of azure in the skies. 

112 



THREE MORNINGS 

They may know Nature, but they do not know 
The inner secrets that she will disclose, 

The thousand little beauties she will show, 
When turn the walls of black to walls of rose. 

To hear the matin twitter of a bird 

Is sweeter music than his proudest lay ; 
Some mystery a distant branch has stirred, 

Some woodland signal of returning day. 
And now another sings a sleepy note. 

Some little hidden singer answers him, 
The low, hushed music of a waking throat, 

Soft as the singing in cathedrals dim. 

And you were very weary, I recall. 

And I was very silent to your mood, 
A little closer drew your little shawl, 

And thought the thought a waking pigeon cooed. 
Then on my shoulder fell a golden head. 

That head you held so proudly other times ; 
The morning said the things I would have said. 

And said them better than a poet's rimes. 

That was our mating, mating without speech — 
No pledge, no promise, no vehement vow ; 

The morning seemed into our hearts to reach ; 
We always after understood, somehow. 

113 



THREE MORNINGS 

There are three mornings I remember well, 
Three mornings that have been the best and 
worst, 
When I have sipped of heaven, tasted hell — 
There were three mornings — this one was the 
first. 



A year ; another morning ; by a fire 

I woke to feel a shiver in the breeze; 
Above a pine sighed dismally, the sire 

Of all the circle of his somber trees. 
An Indian runner loping down the hill, 

Red-visage, sullen, silent, swollen eyes, 
Fit messenger to carry tale so ill — 

There was no blue that morning in the skies. 

You had grown weary of your wedded life. 

The constant quarrel and the endless hurt. 
The things I said that cut you like a knife, 

The husband's heel that ground you in the dirt. 
I might return, but you were through with me, 

The two who had been one again were two. 
I looked afar above the murmuring tree : 

But in the sky that morning was no blue. 

114 



THREE MORNINGS 

Then from the west there came a puff of rain, 

Not rain that comes majestic in its might: 
The slow, damp fog that hides the hill and plain, 

A wall of gray to bar the morning light. 
The fire burned sickly, heavy hung the smoke ; 

No bird attempted song in hour so sad ; 
Beneath its weight of wet a sapling broke, 

And east and west no hope of morning had. 

Forgetting rain, the rain I could not feel, 

I sat me down upon the sodden ground 
And read your letter like a knife of steel ; 

I turned your knife of steel around, around. 
The runner took his dollar with no sign 

And left me to my thoughts and dying fire, 
My dying fire and dying hopes of mine. 

When all things died except the old desire. 

It was not many mornings after that, 

That other morning. All the hours of night 
The waters rose upon the marshy flat, 

The maddened river, like a horse in flight 
Rolled down upon the village by the mill. 

Rolled down upon the little sawmill town ; 
And some there were took refuge on the hill. 

And some there were could only pray and drown. 

115 



THREE MORNINGS 

And then I found you, when upon the east 

One trembhng finger wrote a word of dawn 
And then a sentence, till the torrent ceased, 

The gray sky opened and the night was gone. 
And this made such a morning glorious. 

The most remembered in my memory, 
That, while I sought you madly, madly thus, 

I came upon you seeking after me. 

That morn we watched the troubled waters fall ; 

The crest was over and the danger past. 
That was the morning holiest of all, 

For we had learned the truth of it at last. 
Each wrong, each right, each foolish in a way, 

We wrote "forgotten" on our ills of old. 
And saw the sunrays of returning day 

Change skies to blue, and life again to gold.' 

Upon the hill we built our house again. 

The sure, high hill that floods could never touch. 
And loved a little better ever then, 

Who loved too little when we loved too much. 
Upon the solid rock of faith we stand, 

And, gray the cloud or sunny blue the skies. 
We meet them heart to heart and hand in hand — 

For all our mornings three have made us wise. 



116 



THE WOODLAND 

If you would love the woodland, it 

Must be a living thing to you — 
A comrade at whose feet you sit 

And look together at the blue. 

You must love sun as flowers do 
The god of day ; the kiss of rain 

Must be as healing sweet to you 
As to the daisy on the plain. 

You must go faring without fear 

The woodland wild, however far — 
In some new path a pioneer. 

And for your compass but a star. 

You must lie down with door ajar 
Beside the midnight waters' hem, 

You must lie down where wild things are 
And feel companionship with them. 

You must delight in that delight 
The bud enjoys when first it knows 

The passing of the Winter night 
And wakes to find itself a rose. 

117 



THE WOODLAND 

You must feel pleasures such as those, 
The joy of living in the land, 

And, as the waking leaves unclose, 
Must feel your petaled soul expand. 



118 



IF FORTUNE CAME 

If old Dame Fortune came to-day up in the timber on a 

hike 
An' told me I could have my way, have any treasure 

that I like— 
I wonder just what I would say, for just what blessin' 

I would strike. 

Offhand I guess I'd ask for cash, for money is a handy 

thing. 
I've had enough to make a splash or two myself in 

town in Spring ; 
I've drawed my stake an' made a flash an' had my 

little yearly fling. 

Offhand I guess I'd ask for dough, for that's what most 

men think of first — 
The thing that keeps us peggin' so, the thirst that's like 

a whisky thirst; 
The thing that's helped a few I know, an' twice as 

many others cursed. 

119 



IF FORTUNE CAME 

I'd ask a million bucks or two, so I could ditch the tim- 
ber tall 

An' know that it an' me was through, the corduroy 
an' four-turn haul — 

That all that I would have to do was spend my money, 
that was all. 

I'd buy myself a house in town with Brussels carpet 

on the floor ; 
I'd quit the booze an' settle down an' never hit it any 

more ; 
I'd put on style, an' do it brown — for that's, I guess, 

what money's for. 

I'd set an' loaf the time away, I'd start again a-livin' 

white ; 
I'd can this dirty pipe of clay an' get a meersch'um 

that was right; 
I'd eat my old three squares a day, an' sleep a good 

eight hours at night. 

But some vacation, so to speak, I'd like to have it now 

an' then — 
To leave my cash an' take a sneak up here along with 

other men 
An', say, put in about a week in this old lumber camp 

again. 

120 




I'd like to just come nvalkin' in an' find you all a-settin' here 



IF FORTUNE CAME 

I'd like to just come walkin' in an* find you all a-set- 

tin' here, 
An' wash in that old pail of tin, an' drink a cup of 

coffee clear. 
An' then git out an' work like sin, just as I've done 

for forty year. 

I'd like to set beside the fire upon the norway deacon- 
seat 

An' listen to some sawed-off liar his yarns remarkable 
repeat ; 

Or maybe go an' pull a briar, an' then come in an' eat 
an' eat. 

An' let me tell you, my good dame, I'd have you 

clearly understand 
If I can't mootch it just the same to road an' camp 

an' timberland — 
I wouldn't take it, if you came with twenty million in 

your hand! 



121 



ONE 

There runs a pathway by the hedge 

And up across the clearing, 
A ribbon through the woodland's edge, 

Appearing, disappearing, 
That fades beyond the hills of gray 

Where red the west is burning ; 
And many men have passed this way, 

And few who came returning. 

Full many men have followed it. 

The path beside the shanty ; 
And some there were with wealth or wit, 

And some who sang a chanty ; 
And some were sad and some were gay. 

And there were some who flattered ; 
Yes, many men have passed this way — 

But only one who mattered. 



122 



A CAMP IN THE WOODS WITH A FRIEND 

The wealth of a wonderful hall 

With splendors of painting and gold, 
The pride of a tapestried wall 

Or portraiture faded and old, 
The treasures of age and of art. 

The luxuries riches can lend, 
No comfort will bring to the heart 

Like a camp in the woods with a friend. 

The swallows are singing by day. 

The roses are rioting near ; 
A bob-o-link over the way 

Is adding his carol of cheer. 
The road may be stony and hot, 

But there is a trail at the end 
That leads to life's pleasantest spot — 

Just a camp in the woods with a friend. 

And then come the eve and the stars, 
And then come the dark and the moon ;• 

You've lighted your glowing cigars, 
You warble together a tune. 

123 



A CAMP IN THE WOODS WITH A FRIEND 

The insects are flashing in flight, 
The branches so tenderly bend — 

And you are at home for the night 
In a camp in the woods with a friend. 



124 



HIS EYES 

Right where you sit she sat 

That last, last night we knew— 

With roses in her hat, 

A dress of blue; 

And, just like you, 

She would not have a light 

But just the fire. 

And all outdoors was night, 

And night a lyre 

That played a hundred tunes. 

Old Junes, 

Old Junes and new. 

It seemed that all the songs I ever heard 

Were echoed in the song of just one bird 

Who would not stop when westward 

sank the sun. 
Who would not stop until his song 

was done. 
His singing through. 

But still the musk 

Came to us through the dusk, 

And low we talked about another day 

When she would go away. 

125 



HIS EYES 

"To-morrow, I suppose" — 
And that was far. 
"To-morrow" — no one knows 
How near they are. 

The camp 

Was sleeping — hunyack, Injun, tramp 
And all the crew. 
And I sat here 
And she sat there like you — 
So near, 

And yet so far she seemed to be, 
For mountains lay between the maid 
and me. 

There was no light. 

She seemed to fade into the night 

As goes a friend, 

Up hill, beyond the bend. 

And out of sight. 

Then we sat silent ; silent so 

She rose to go. 

We said good-by, 

And I, 

I dared not sigh, 

I dared not speak a word. 

126 



HIS EYES 

The valley does not wed the sky, 

The weed the bird. 

Next day her father's car 

Fell like a falling star 

Beyond the hill 

And left me standing still 

With foolish notions thrilling through 

my head — 
Thank God, unsaid. 

And, as the eve 

Faded that night of nights — 

A warning, I believe — 

A little later came the accident 

And dimmer lights 

And woods that went 

In deeper dark. 

Until the spark 

Fled from my eyes and left on earth 

behind 
Only her lovely image on my mind— 
And I was blind. 

I am the filer here, a handy man. 

I can feel 

As few men can 

To sharpen steel- 

127 



HIS EYES 

I file the saws 

And play my little part. 

Because 

To file a saw or hang an ax is art. 

I can not see, 

But know the woods, the trees, 

I can not see, 

Yet hear their melodies. 

And so 

I can not see you, girl, and yet you seem 

The living presence of a blind man's 

dream. 
I can not see — and yet you seem to bring 
The pulse of old, the pain, and everything. 
You touch me — kiss me — God, can it be true ! 
And you are you? 

I can not see. 

Yet see, who could not see before ; 

And you shall be 

My eyes forevermore. 



128 



THE ONE-SPOT 

Rusty, an' greasy, an' not very beautiful — 

Holes in her fire-box, an' scale in her tubes — 
Ready to rock in a manner undutiful, 

RoUin' the rookies an' scarin' the rubes ; 
Loose in her bearin's, an' loose in her habit, too, 

Shakin', an' quakin', an' rattlety-bang, 
Needin' some paint an' some bolts, an' some babbitt, 
too — • 

But she's the pride of the whole of the gang. 

Rusty, an' greasy, an' dirty she maybe is, 

Wantin' some paint an' a week in the shops, 
Cranky perhaps as a colicky baby is, 

Spittin' exhaust at the track-layin' wops — 
But she can climb any grade that's in front of her, 

Hold on a hill any train that's behind : 
Thirty-five loads is the regular stunt of her ; 

Tack on a loader an' she'll never mind. 

Railroadin' here ain't the transcontinental kind — 
Fifty-pound rail is the best that you get ; 

Bridges up here ain't the nice, ornamental kind — 
Just a few stringers a-crossin' the wet. 

129 



THE ONE-SPOT 

Humps in the track, that has many a crick to it, 
Rails that are spread, an' old ties that are knurled 

But, turn her loose with a load, an' she'll stick to it, 
Stick to the rottenest road in the world ! 



130 



THE ASPEN 

Where all the rivers northward run 

Beyond the Height of Land, 
And where the law is just a gun. 

The judge a steady hand, 
The feeble aspen of the drouth 

Becomes a giant thing, 
The quivering aspen of the South 

Becomes an arctic king. 

And so the man who journeys where 

The road to Hudson's lies. 
His wine the sharp Canadian air. 

His compass in the skies, 
Grows stronger like the aspen tree 

That in the North appears — 
Takes on the stature presently 

Of arctic pioneers. 



131 



BEHIND A SPIRE 

It ain't our wickedness alone 

That keeps us out of church ; 
An' so, before you cast a stone 

An' leave us in the lurch, 
Just see if somethin' ain't about 

Besides our mortal sin 
That keeps us still a-holdin' out 

When preachin' asts us in. 

We used to have (I won't say where) 

An elder in the place 
Who led so loud in Sunday pray'r 

It shook the throne of grace. 
But all the week to feed his game 

The busted swampers went ; 
He hailed the power of Jesus' name 

An' soaked 'em twelve per cent. 

Perhaps if eight had satisfied 

That shoutin' hypocrite. 
Some scoffin' swamper might have tried 

To straighten up a bit ; 

132 



BEHIND A SPIRE 

But we dislike the man who tries 

To give us title clear 
To any mansion in the skies 

An' grab our title here. 



133 



FORTY 

Up the hill to Holton is a merry climb ; 
I have walked to Holton many is the time : 
Dew upon the grasses, roses by the road. 
Till you never notice if you have a load. 

Down the hill from Holton is a merry way, 
Coming home from Holton at the close of day : 
Straight ahead the sunset, straight ahead the stars, 
And the beacon burning at the open bars. 

Up the hill to forty was a merry tramp : 
Daisies on the hillside, lilies in the damp, 
Friends to walk beside me all the busy years, 
Sharing of my laughter, sharing of my tears. 

Down the hill from forty, may it be the best ! — 
Walking to the refuge waiting in the west : 
Straight ahead the sunset, straight ahead the stars. 
And the beacon burning at the open bars. 



134 



THE MAN WHO ALWAYS WON 

He 

Was poor as me. 

An* I was poor 

As any beaver workin' in the wet, 

Excursionin' ashore 

His grub to get. 

We dug like beavers, too, 

As workers do. 

But now I know 

That all I worked for was a bed an' food, 

But he had dreams 

An', in the solitude, 

He saw the gleams 

Of golden dollars grow 

To riches even in the long ago. 

The thing success 

That come to many in the wilderness 

Was not the luck that envy says it was — 

It had a cause. 

We both were young. 

We both were young an* strong. 

135 



THE MAN WHO ALWAYS WON 

I worked as hard, 

I know I worked as long. 

But dollars clung 

To him. Long afterward 

I knew the reason why : 

He had a dream, an' not a dream had I. 

First thing I knew 

He was the boss. Yet, of the two, 

I was the better cruiser. I could cruise 

A tract of timber an' the sections choose 

Where wealth was waitin' in the hills of pine ; 

So bossin' was his job, an' cruisin' mine. 

I cruised for him an', when my cash was gone, 

Was mighty grateful that he took me on. 

An' then the woman come — they always come 

In each man's life, 

To some a wife 

An' just a dream to some — 

An' that was when 

I started dreamin' dreams like other men. 

She was no timid, blue-eyed, baby thing ; 

She was a queen, fit for a forest king. 

She was a woman big of hip an' arm, 

A farmer's daughter on a buckwheat farm. 

On the trail 

I used to wonder why some fellahs fail 

An' others win ; 

136 



THE MAN WHO ALWAYS WON 

An' I made up my mind 

The reason I would find 

An' buckle in. 

But then again 

There was the difference in different men : 

He had the start 

In dreamin' an' in doin' — an' a heart 

Was like a stand of pine, 

To take when I had found it. She was mine, 

My sky, my sun, 

An' yet he won. 

I did not kill him, curse him, even hate — 

For it was fate. 

But sometimes when I leave the woods a spell. 

An' it is seldom, an' the fellahs tell 

How well he's done. 

The man who always won. 

Somehow all right it seems — 

For he had dreams. 

One time I even suppered at his place, 

When in to talk about some timberland, 

A house so grand 

I wondered that I ever had the face 

To think that she 

Would take the likes of me. 

137 



THE MAN WHO ALWAYS WON 

Yet all the same, 

There come a thought that took away the 

shame 
That I had dared 
To want her, raven-haired — 
A thought that these, 
The luxuries, 

The gold, the glass, the auto, an* the fur, 
The costly goods, 
An* husband, too, 
A cruiser in the woods 
Had given her — 
Although she never knew. 



138 



DISCOVERY 

There lurks in every breast some of the fire 

That sent Columbus daring unknown seas, 
There lurks in every human heart desire 

To find new continents. To such as these 
The woodland is a world, and continents 

They who go seeking shall as surely find 
As he who scorned an earth's experience 

And left established error far behind. 

Let us go forth, as great Columbus sailed, 

And we shall find new archipelagoes — 
Sequestered paths that only deer have trailed. 

Perhaps another continent, who knows? — 
Some cloistered valley far from man removed. 

Some fragrant clearing hidden in the firs, 
Some lily garden man has never loved. 

Waiting our coming, the discoverers. 

We may not find Americas, but we 

Shall feel the thrill that thrilled a greater breast- 
Perhaps a mountain that will glimpse the sea. 

Beneath a stump perhaps a partridge nest ; 

139 



DISCOVERY 

We shall make sail across the trackless green, 
We shall uncover riches in the flower, 

We shall behold new beauties now unseen — 
Yea, we shall be Columbus for an hour. 



140 



THE TIMES 

You hear a plenty of complaint 
About the times. Folks say they ain't 
As good as times had ought to be ; 
But why they ain't they can't agree. 
Some blame the trusts, an' others blame 
The agitation on the same 
That keeps the public mind aflame. 

An' there's the tariff ; that is what 
Some say it is, an' some it's not. 
The customer will tell you why 
The cost of livin' is so high — 
The tariff, blame it ! Bye-an'-bye 
The factory whose trade is slow 
Will tell you why the price is low — 
The tariff, blame it ! made it so. 

Well, I dunno. It seems to me 

That somethin' else the cause may be — 

That there may be some reason plain 

Why things cloud up an' look like rain. 

I rather guess that maybe you 

An' me have more or less to do 

141 



THE TIMES 

With makin' times. It ain't the chaps 
In Washington alone, perhaps, 
That make 'em good or make 'em dull 
An' money scarce or plentiful. 

Of course they help. When times is good 

They're glad to have it understood 

They fixed things like they said they would. 

Perhaps they did, perhaps they do ; 

Perhaps they did the other, too — 

For hard times never hit the purse 

But some fool law can make 'em worse. 

I rather guess that you an* me 
Make panics an' prosperity. 
An', if a quiet time should come 
An' people have to figger some 
To make the same old two ends meet 
An' furnish stuff to wear an' eat, 
That you an' me an' such as us 
Made business so, an' matters thus, 
An' not some legislatin' cuss. 

Now confidentially, my friends. 

Not what he makes but what he spends 

It is that separates the ends 

Man has such trouble makin' meet — 

An' that's the kernel in the wheat. 

142 



THE TIMES 

You know it sort of seems of late 
That we are goin' quite a gait — 
Are makin' cash hand over fist 
With ev'ry business on the Hst. 
An* actin' Hke (an* quite a bit) 
A drunken sailor spendin' it. 

I know, I know, when men git old 
They like to set around an' scold 
An' talk about the good old days 
When people followed better ways. 
An' so, whatever I may say, 
You'll figger it's because the gray 
Is creepin' slowly through my hair- 
Because the snow is driftin' there. 

But I remember, when a boy 
We had a decent share of joy — 
I'll bet I laffed as often then 
As do these later gentlemen 
Who hang around the blazin' bars 
Or hit it up in auto cars. 

We never seen a cabaret ; 
We never drunk a night away ; 
We never gambled till the sun — 
An' yet, we had a little fun. 

143 



THE TIMES 

Why, boy, I look along the years 
Of childhood with the pioneers. 
An' memory is sweet with tears. 

I see it now : the little town, 
A road of plank that wandered down 
A street we called "The Avenue," 
A sawdust city through an' through — 
Oh, it would never do for you! 

The girls wore gingham, calico. 

An' other weaves you never know. 

Their bonnets saved their cheeks from tan, 

But raised the dickens with a man. 

For blue eyes peepin' from a poke, 

A white neck in a modest yoke. 

Were twice as purty, seems to me. 

As laigs that all the world can see. 

At six the sawmill whistle blew ; 
With swingin' pails the sawmill crew 
Come walkin' up the sawdust hill 
From Ryerson's or Mason's mill 
Or White an' Swan's or anywhere 
A pathway met the thoroughfare. 
Soft eyes of blue an' eyes of brown 
Were watchin' in the windowed town 

144 



THE TIMES 

An' blushed, an' pulled the curtains down. 
An' then the evenin' an' the moon ! 
Why, anywhere it's night an' June 
An' moonlight is a place to spoon ! 

They hadn't made the auto then — 
A lucky thing for common men 
Like us, with just an envelope 
Each thirty days, an' love, an' hope. 
In fact a girl felt purty big 
Whose fellah hired a liv'ry rig 
An' drove her to a country dance — 
That was enough extravagance. 

But, lookin' backward to those nights, 
They seem as full of love's delights 
As life could be — perhaps because 
Man's money don't make lovers' laws. 
For I have set upon a stump 
An' heard the heart inside me thump 
As you who Peacock Alley sweep 
Have never felt your pulses leap. 
Or I have let the old horse walk 
An' took her hand in mine to talk, 
An' sneaked an arm around her waist 
An' held her only half -embraced — 

145 



THE TIMES 

Yes, half in earnest, half in play, 
For fear she'd take my arm away. 
An' I have let the ribbons fall 
An' never drove the horse at all 
An' drawn her closer — Why, my boy. 
Is money all there is of joy? 
Is love across a glass of wine 
A better, bigger love than mine. 
In that old buggy 'neath the pine? 

How I have wandered ! My intent 
To speak in this here argument 
Concerned the times. When times is slow 
It's me an' you that makes 'em so. 
But people now have come to prize 
The thing alone that money buys ; 
We all have learnt to advertise — 
The more it costs the more we boast. 
An' he is best who spends the most. 
We slave to earn like maddened moles ; 
Within the earth we dig our holes 
An' wallow there an' sell our souls. 
We climb the air, we scrape the sky, 
An' wind an' storm an' God defy. 
The cottage that we used to own 
We've traded for a thing of stone. 

146 



THE TIMES 

We house our babes in caves of steel 
An* never teach 'em there to kneel 
An' love of home an' hearth to feel. 

Why, home meant somethin' in the days 
Us graybeards love to set an' praise. 
You can't make homes of city flats 
With hallway rows an' back yard spats, 
Where men an' women, kids an' cats, 
Are huddled on a single floor, 
With ev'ry noise a call to war. 
You've got to own the house, the ground, 
An' everything that grows around. 
A path that wanders to a gate. 
Where little children come to wait 
When father's comin' happens late, 
That's home — Home ain't in dinin' out 
An' eatin' ev'ry where about; 
Home ain't electric lights, the flash 
Of di'monds, an' the music's crash — 
For life is somethin' more than cash. 

The times ? Yes, I was talkin' of 
The times. You sort of laff at love. 
An' so we'll talk of dollars, friend — 
A language you can comprehend. 

147 



THE TIMES 

Well, times git tighter now an' then — 
They may git tighter here again ; 
An* then we pay the price, my boy, 
For all our artificial joy. 
The joys of old made no one poor, 
But made the country more secure. 
This land was builded on a rock 
Of corncob pipe an' gingham frock. 
But now, when trouble comes, my lad, 
When times git tight an' business bad. 
We're little fixed in soul or purse 
To meet conditions that are worse. 
We've spent our money, spilled our blood. 
An' built no ark to ride the flood 
When trouble comes. An' then we quit 
An' talk about the cause of it. 
We blame some other fellah's game. 
When we, ourselves, are all to blame. 
The times ? It's us that makes the same ! 



148 



KEEP YOUR EARS AHEAD 

On the tote-road, on the street, on the trail or tram, 
I have known a hoss or two, teamster that I am: 
Steppers with Kentucky blood, ordinary plugs, 
Ev'ry kind of animile ever wearin* tugs; 
Mustang pony, Percheron, goer, thoroughbred — 
But the only hoss worth while kept his ears ahead. 

When a plug becomes a plug ain't when he gits old; 
For a plug may be a plug from the day he's foaled. 
When a critter to the back slants them ears of his, 
Then you know the bloomin' brute, know the brute he is. 
For he'll either bite or balk, loaf, or bolt instead; 
Never trust a hoss unless he keeps his ears ahead. 

But a hoss that is a hoss, of the proper kind. 
Doesn't listen all the while for the whip behind. 
He is lookin' down the road, sniffin', an' all that — 
He is takin' interest in the work he's at. 
Work is joy to such a nag, farm or fancy bred; 
Life is somethin' to a hoss that keeps his ears ahead. 

149 



KEEP YOUR EARS AHEAD 

Man is somethin' like a hoss, with his work to do; 
On the tough old trail of life how is it with you? 
Do you put your shoulder then in the collar square? 
Of the load we have to pull, do you pull a share? 
Are you full of pep an* steam, or is your spirit dead? 
Are you livin' in the past, or are your ears ahead? 



150 



THE WIDOWHOOD OF DOUBT 

There is a widowhood of doubt, there is a deeper hurt 

than death — 
A life of always looking out, of listening with halted 

breath : 
A sudden likeness in the street, a sound familiar in the 

tread 
Of some one passing — so to meet some daily vision of 

the dead. 

The Missing, dead yet living, they who live no more, 
and never died : 

How these their widows day by day must bear a grief 
unsatisfied ! 

Not theirs a great Physician's balm, not theirs to linger 
by a cross. 

Not theirs the years of sorrow's calm, the blessed certi- 
tude of loss. 

Still they must wonder if the wood or waters claimed 

him, if the tree 
It was that made their widowhood — or if unwidowed 

they may be. 

151 



THE WIDOWHOOD OF DOUBT 

So many go the woodland trail; the curtains close 

about them; then 
There comes a rumor or a tale; but they, they come 

not forth again. 

Then the long widowhood of doubt : Perhaps to-night 

he will return; 
From heart and window shining out the woman's 

sainted candles burn — 
Each day a disappointment, each new hour a hope, a 

hope to dim, 
A wish that constant ray would reach around the 

world in search of him. 

Ah, weedless widows, widowed, wed to years of such 
uncertainty, 

Wan widows of the living dead, earth's saddest mourn- 
ers, such are ye. 

If they be dead your candles seek, God give you proof 
and comfort, too; 

But, if they live and do not speak, God punish them 
and pity you. 



152 



RETIRED 

Yes, I've made a little stake 

In the lumber game ; 
Yes, I've been a lucky jake, 
Managed in my life to make 

Somethin' from the same — 

Have a mill that's mine. 
Have some money laid away, 
Saved ag'inst a rainy day. 

Own a jag of pine ; 
Fuss around the puttin' green, 
Travel in a limousine 

With a colored shofer, 
Have a little cash to give, 
Have a little time to live — 

Somethin' of a loafer. 

Yep, I am the sort of gink 

People like to knock. 
People who appear to think 
That a fellah found his chink 
Layin' on a rock. 

153 



RETIRED 

If I have a bit, 
Not a dollar that I own 
But I paid in flesh an' bone 

For the whole of it. 
An*, I guess, a lot of men 
People slander now an' then 

Got it on the level. 
Made the money they possess 
Like the lumberman, I guess, 

Workin' like the devil. 

Life it wasn't always so — 

Comfort an' content ; 
There was days not long ago, 
There was days I didn't know 

Where to raise a cent — 

Figgered, borrowed, saved. 
Looked for twenty years ahead. 
Minded not what others said. 

Studied, suffered, slaved; 
Cruised the timber that was new 
People said would never do, 

Learnt alone to ramble ; 
Staked the little all I had, 
Ventured when the times was bad, 

Bought upon a gamble ; 

154 



RETIRED 

Walked the wilderness by day, 

Worried in the night ; 
With a timid bank to pay, 
Learnt the one an* only way 

Was to work an' fight. 

Folks who think the pine 
An* the money easy come, 
I will gladly tell you some 

Ways I gethered mine : 
Worked a peavey, pulled a saw. 
Rode the river in a thaw 

When my legs was limber. 
Beat the bullies with my fist — 
Life an' home an* comfort missed 

For the sake of timber. 

Then, at last, I got a mill. 
With a promise bought; 
Lord, an* I remember still. 
An* I guess I always will. 
Troubles that it brought : 
Somethin* breakin* loose, 
Crackin* saws an* fallin* steam — 
Ev'rything I had would seem 

Goin* to the deuce. 
Then the price would fade away 
An* the lumber piles would lay 

155 



RETIRED 

Waitin' for a taker; 
Stumpage droppin' off the earth- 
All the timber wasn't worth 

Fifty cents an acre. 

Yet it helped to make a man. 

All the trouble did ; 
For to work an' fret an' plan 
Is the thing that makes the man 

Out of any kid. 

An' I'm glad the test 
Come among the snows an' thaws 
In the wilderness, because 

It was for the best. 
For I have a notion, too. 
Woods of green an' skies of blue, 

Snowin', blowin', rainin'. 
Can not help but make a man 
Honest, decent, squarer than 

All your city trainin'. 

It's a business that is clean, 

Workin' in the wood ; 
Skies of blue an' woods of green, 
Winter storm or summer scene, 

They are plain an' good. 

156 




^ \^ 






JVorked a pea-vey, pulled a :a-j:, rode the river in a tliaix: 



RETIRED 

Timber on the hill 
Has a flavor sweet as wine. 
An' the sawdust of the pine 

In around the mill 
Makes a man as clean inside 
As the sky that stretches wide 

In the brightest weather. 
God may walk the city streets 
But, when man outdoors He meets. 

Then they walk together. 

There folks look you in the face ; 

There a man's a man ; 
There an ace must be an ace, 
For the woods it ain't a place 

For shenanigan. 

There is less of law, 
There is less of preachin' there. 
But you find a fellah square 

In a mackinaw. 
Law or creed we mayn't know — 
Though it's been a year or so 

Since we seen a steeple, 
When we buy or when we sell 
Then we stack up purty well 

With your city people. 

157 



RETIRED 

So, if somethin' I have made 

For a rainy day, 
If Fve made a lucky trade. 
By the rules of Hoyle I played 

All along the way. 

If I have a mill, 
If I have a jag of pine, 
Somethin' in the bank that's mine, 

Somethin' in the till, 
If for me the axes swing. 
If for me the pulleys sing 

An' the saw is hummin'. 
If I take a little rest 
When my sun is in the west — 

Boys, I've got it comin' ! 



158 



THE RECRUIT'S REQUEST 

Sing us no song of the stripes an' the stars 

Callin' us heroes an' such; 
We are plumb sick of the music of wars, 
Star spangled bannered too much. 
Give us a hail 

From the tote-road, the trail. 
Up where the water's alive; 
Give us Paul Bunyan, or some such a tale- 
Sing us a song of the drive I 

We aren't specially hymnin' our hate, 

We aren't damnin' the Hun. 
Let us f orgit it, a while any rate, 
Nix on the sword an' the gun. 
Give us a song 
As we're marchin' along, 
Somethin' to lighten the tramp; 
Give us a tune on the old dinner-gong — 
Sing us a song of the camp ! 

When we go up to the guns of the foe, 

Where there is dyin' to do, 
Some other song we will warble, I know, 

Never the red, white an' blue — 

159 



THE RECRUIT'S REQUEST 

Chokin' a tear 

For some girl who is dear 
Over the hill an' the foam, 
We will be lookin' right back over here. 
Singin' some ditty of home. 



160 



THE WEDDING 

I've heard of your wonderful weddin'. 

My faraway, favorite niece ; 
I've read ev'ry newspaper headin' 

An' ev'ry "Society" piece. 
I'm glad that your weddin' was quiet, 

An' simple in garb an' in gown, 
An' no matrimonial riot 

Upsettin' the whole of the town. 

So many there are that are noisy. 

With hunderds to cackle an' stare, 
Reported from Boston to Boise, 

With lists of the notables there — 
A church that is crowded with people, 

A street that is busy with din, 
A fire-alarm rung from the steeple 

To gether the curious in. 

But yours it was quiet an* simple. 

With only your friends an' your folks. 

Who laffed at your daintiest dimple 
An' smiled at the minister's jokes. 

161 



THE WEDDING 

Their greetin* was honest an' hearty, 
The neighbors who come to the door, 

A sort of a family party 
Without any riot an' roar. 

I always have thought gittin' married 

Was rather a personal thing ; 
For why should a couple be harried — 

Two turtle-doves just on the wing — 
By crowdin' an' talkin' an' shoutin', 

An' hunderds to gossip an' sneer? 
A weddin's no picnic or outin'. 

As you will discover, my dear. 

If I had the act to do over 

(I speak as a fellah outdoors 
Who likes to wade meadows of clover 

An' camp by their musical shores), 
I wouldn't have that for a minute. 

When I an' the girl were made one ; 
I'd have just the song of a linnet, 

I'd have just the light of the sun. 

I wouldn't care much if the others 
Should know I got married or not ; 

I'd just want the fathers an' mothers 
When hitched double-harness I got. 

162 



THE WEDDING 

rd just want a preacher who's pleasant, 
I'd just want a day that is fair ; 

I wouldn't care much who was present 
As long as the lady was there. 

The throwin* of rice I don't care for, 

I have some old shoes of my own ; 
I wonder what people are there for 

An' why all the truck should be thrown ? 
The rice an' the shoes an' the kisses 

May add to the holiday fuss. 
But they wouldn't please me an' the missus 

By makin' a target of us. 

An' no one would follow the custom 

Of kissin' the lady I chose ; 
If any one tried it, I'd bust him 

Right there on the spot on the nose. 
If all of these holiday hooters 

Went kissin' the lady I win, 
I'd unlimber a pair of six-shooters 

An* the party would really begin. 



163 



AFTERWARD 

Well you remember where it was we met : 

A cabin in a valley by a stream ; 
I can not think you could so soon forget — 
That I alone remember and regret, 

And dream. 

I was a man of labor in the land 

To which you came upon a holiday ; 
I was a man of labor, ax in hand, 
And you a Summer pilgrim, laughing and 
Away. 

I loved the woodland ways no less than you, 

Than you who spoke of them in rhapsodies- 
Perhaps their greater beauties better knew 
And deeper felt the music singing through 
The trees. 

I wonder if it always shall be so — 

If you look laughing to that year again, 
Recall a pleasant Summer with a glow. 
While I remain, remember, only know 
Its pain? 

164 



THE BAD MAN 

There was a gink 
Blew into camp 
Not very long ago 

Who'd make you think 
He had a lamp 
Like no one here below. 
He bragged about 

The fights he had, 
He built up quite a rep ; 
Without a doubt 

We thought him bad, 
A party full of pep. 

His laigs, his arms, 

He said were swell. 
His uppercut a peach ; 
His other charms 

He used to tell — 
His footwork an' his reach. 
He bullied us, 

I must confess ; 

165 



THE BAD MAN 

We let him have his way ; 
An' not a cuss 

But answered yes, 
Whatever he would sav. 

The matter might 
Have gone along 
The way that it had been, 
But Monday night, 

When feelin' strong. 
He sort of sauntered in 
An* made a crack 
If any hick 
Should give him any jaw 
He'd beat him black, 
For he could lick 
The whole of Arkansaw. 

I needn't state 

The details now 
Or which one was the one 
That couldn't wait. 
But, anyhow. 
The jamboree begun. 
The gang an' me 

Commenced to maul 

166 



THE BAD MAN 

An' pound the geezer good. 
He said that he 

Could lick us all — 
An', darn the luck, he could ! 



167 



A LOOK BACK 

You have packed up your duffle and put out your fire, 
There is nothing ahead but the trail, 

But the trail that leads up to the hill you desire — 
You will come nevermore to the vale. 

'Twas a shelter from storm and a home for the night, 
'Twas a place for a fire and a snack ; 

You are through with it now, you are off with the 
light- 
But you stop and you take a look back. 

'Twas a spot for a camp such as seldom you find. 

With a slope that would drain it of wet ; 
There was green grass in front, there was timber 
behind. 

And the deadwood was easy to get. 
'Twas a bed and a roof for the wandering one, 

'Twas a rest and a refuge for Jack ; 
Now you're oflP to the east and you're up with the sun — 

But you stop and you take a look back. 

168 



A LOOK BACK 

And this life is just that from beginning to end 

It's a camp, and a hike, and a camp. 
It is greeting a stranger, farewell to a friend, 

Ev'ry morning new timber to tramp. 
For we can not remain and we can not return, 

We must follow old Time in his track; 
But the campfires of old in our memory burn — 

And we stop and we take a look back. 



169 



THE CRUISE 

When all the years are but a year 

Fast drawing to a close, 
And I am through with cruising here 

Forever, I suppose. 
Then upward to the final cross 

The last hill I shall climb 
And stand before the mighty Boss 

Who figures up our time. 

He gave me once a world to cruise, 

He staked me to a life, 
And left me my own way to choose, 

A path of peace or strife. 
Across the sky He spread His stars, 

The sun to travel by. 
His great unchanging calendars 

For pilgrims such as I. 

But there are things He never knew 
In this great world of His : 

The heavens are not always blue — 
The hurricane there is, 

170 



THE CRUISE 

And nights without a star to shine 
There are, and sudden snares, 

And tangled ways, and trailing vines. 
To take men unawares. 

And, if He knew it all the while. 

That things like these are here. 
The pitfall in the pleasant mile, 

The gray skies with the clear, 
He knows that I for every rose 

Was punished with a thorn, 
For every passion red He knows 

Some burden I have borne. 

I did not make a woman's eyes, 

I did not make the brew, 
I did not make the sweetest lies 

Man ever listened to, 
I did not make the greed of gold, 

And all of human ills — ■ 
When I was young these things were old 

As His eternal hills. 

I think He takes men in His hand, 

I and all mortal men, 
I think that He can understand 

And balance things again, 

171 



THE CRUISE 

I think He weighs a man beside 
The sort of chance he had, 

I think He knows His world is wide, 
A good world and a bad. 

I think He knows it all along 

When figuring our time, 
And scratches off the little wrong 

The holy call a crime ; 
I think that when life's year is past, 

However feet may fail. 
That He will lead me home at last, 

Although I missed the trail. 



THE END 



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